Word counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and reading time as you type.
Runs entirely in your browser — your text is never uploaded.
Limits worth knowing before you write
A lot of writing is written to a counter. Meta descriptions are cut off around 155 characters and page titles around 60, which is why both are checked in characters rather than words. Posts on X allow 280 characters, and an SMS segment is 160 characters in GSM-7 encoding — add one emoji and the whole message re-encodes to UCS-2, dropping the limit to 70.
Academic and professional work is usually specified in words instead, and the gap between the two matters: 500 words of ordinary English runs to roughly 2,500–3,000 characters including spaces.
How the counts are calculated
Words are counted by splitting on runs of whitespace, so a hyphenated compound counts as one word and an em dash between words without spaces will join them. Sentences are detected by terminating punctuation, which means abbreviations such as "e.g." inflate the count slightly. Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line.
Reading time assumes 200 words per minute, a common estimate for adults reading prose on screen. Treat it as a rough guide: technical material with code samples reads considerably slower, and skimmed content much faster.
Everything is computed in your browser as you type. The text is never uploaded, which is the main reason to use this rather than pasting confidential drafts into an unknown site.
Other text tools
- Remove formatting — Paste text copied from a document or web page and get clean plain text back.
- Case converter — Switch text between upper, lower, title, and sentence case.
- Join lines — Merge hard-wrapped lines into paragraphs, keeping real breaks.