Word Counter
Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
Use the Word Counter tool
What this word counter does
Word Counter measures a block of text the way an editor would: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines and unique words. The counts update as you type, so you can trim a paragraph and watch the length fall in real time.
Reading and speaking estimates use 200 and 130 words per minute. A word is a run of letters or digits, so emoji and punctuation count as characters but not as words — a distinction that matters when a platform bills by character.
Why use it
- Hit an essay, abstract or application limit without counting by hand.
- Check whether a page has enough substance before publishing.
- Estimate how long a script will take to read aloud.
How to use it
- 1Paste or type your text into the box.
- 2Watch the counters update on every keystroke.
- 3Use the copy summary button to keep the numbers with your draft.
Worked examples
Short sentence
Input
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Output
9 words · 44 characters · 1 sentence
Two paragraphs
Input
Two paragraphs separated by a blank line.
Output
Counts 2 paragraphs, 1 blank line and an average of 6 words per paragraph.
Common mistakes
- Treating a hyphenated compound as one word when a publisher's style guide counts it as two.
- Assuming every platform counts characters the same way; some count UTF-16 units, so emoji count double.
- Using reading time as a delivery estimate for speech — speaking is much slower than reading.
Frequently asked questions
Does the word counter include numbers?
Why is the character count different from Microsoft Word?
Is my text uploaded?
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