Word Counter

How to count words and characters

1. Paste or type your text. Counts update as you go.
2. Check the numbers. Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading time.
3. Look at word frequency. The most repeated words, with common ones filtered out.

About Word Counter

Word counts exist because someone set a limit. University essays, journal submissions, job applications, grant forms, and meta descriptions all come with a number attached, and being over it is usually a hard fail rather than a rounding issue. Character counts matter in a different set of places: social posts, SMS, database fields, and SEO titles, where the limit is measured in characters and spaces may or may not count.

Both counts are shown here, along with sentences, paragraphs, and reading time. Characters appear twice, with and without spaces, because different systems mean different things by the word. A form that says 500 characters usually includes spaces; a database field limit usually also does; some legacy systems do not. Having both numbers avoids the guess.

Reading time is calculated at 225 words per minute, which is a reasonable average for adults reading ordinary prose on screen. Treat it as an estimate rather than a measurement: dense technical writing is read considerably slower than a news article, and skimming is much faster than either. It is useful for deciding whether a page is a two-minute read or a fifteen-minute one, not for precision.

The word frequency panel is the part that turns out to be most useful in practice. It shows the most repeated words with common ones filtered out, which surfaces two things: unintentional repetition, where a writer has leaned on the same word six times in a page, and the actual subject matter of a piece as opposed to what you assumed it was about. For anything being written for search, that second use is worth a look before publishing.

Word Counter FAQ