Word Counter
Paste or type and every count updates immediately. Useful for essays with a word limit, meta descriptions, and anything with a hard character cap.
Set a target to track progress.
How to use the Word Counter
- Type or paste your text into the box. Every statistic updates as you type.
- Set a target word count to see a progress bar and how many words remain.
- Press Show word frequency to see which words you lean on most.
How each number is counted
Counting sounds trivial until you compare two tools and get different answers. Here is exactly what this one does:
- Words — text split on whitespace, keeping only chunks that contain a letter or digit. A hyphenated compound counts as one word; a standalone dash does not count at all.
- Characters — every character including spaces and line breaks, counted by Unicode code point so an emoji counts as one, not two.
- Sentences — runs of text ending in a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. Abbreviations like "e.g." inflate this slightly; no automated counter avoids that entirely.
- Paragraphs — blocks separated by a blank line.
- Reading time — words ÷ 238 per minute, the average for adult silent reading of general prose.
Common limits worth knowing
| Where | Limit |
|---|---|
| Meta description | ~155 characters before truncation |
| Page title | ~60 characters |
| SMS, single message | 160 characters (70 with emoji or non-Latin script) |
| Bluesky post | 300 characters |
| LinkedIn headline | 220 characters |
| Email subject line | ~50 characters on mobile |
Character limits almost always count spaces, which is why the "no spaces" figure is shown separately rather than as the headline number.
Why word counts differ between tools
Microsoft Word, Google Docs and this tool can all disagree on the same document. The usual causes are hyphenated words, numbers with separators, text inside footnotes and headers, and whether standalone symbols count. Differences of 1–2% are normal.
If you are writing to a hard limit set by someone else, count in the tool they will use to check. For a university submission, that means the word count in your word processor.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser as you type, so unpublished drafts, client work and confidential documents stay on your device.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 238 per minute, an average from studies of adult silent reading. Technical material reads slower; simple prose faster. Treat it as an estimate.
Does it count words in other languages?
Yes for space-separated scripts, including Cyrillic, Greek and accented Latin. Chinese, Japanese and Thai do not separate words with spaces, so the word count is not meaningful for them — use the character count instead.
What counts as a word in the frequency list?
Words of three or more letters, with common function words like "the" and "and" filtered out so the list shows terms that carry meaning.
Related tools
Count characters against a limit, with a live countdown.
Convert text between eight cases, including programming styles.
Sort lines alphabetically, numerically, by length or at random.
Strip repeated lines from a list, with case and trim options.
Turn titles into clean, URL-safe slugs.