Word counter

What is counted

Words are runs of characters separated by whitespace, so "well-known" is one word and "e-mail" is one word. Characters are counted as visible symbols, which means an emoji or an accented letter counts once. Sentences end at a period, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis; paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line.

Reading and speaking time

Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, a commonly cited average for silent reading of non-fiction by adults. Speaking time assumes 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a presentation or voice-over. Treat both as estimates: technical text reads slower, and everyone speaks at their own speed.

Typical limits to check against

Meta descriptions work best under about 155 characters, X (Twitter) posts allow 280, SMS segments hold 160 and many application forms cap essays by words or characters with spaces. Use the character counts here to check before you submit; different sites may count line breaks differently, so leave a small margin.

Example

Counting a two-sentence text.

Input

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It barks.

Output

Words: 11
Characters (with spaces): 54
Characters (without spaces): 44
Sentences: 2
Paragraphs: 1
Lines: 1
Reading time: < 1 min

How to use

1. Type or paste your text in the box above.
2. The result updates as you type; change the options to switch mode.
3. Copy the result or download it.

FAQ

Are my words stored or sent anywhere?

No. The counting is done by JavaScript in your browser. The text is not uploaded, logged or saved.

Do you count characters with or without spaces?

Both. The result lists "with spaces" and "without spaces" separately.

Does it work for Chinese, Japanese or Korean?

Characters are counted correctly, but these languages do not separate words with spaces, so the word count will be much lower than the real number of words. Use the character count instead.

Is there a length limit?

No fixed limit. Very large texts (millions of characters) may make the page slower because everything is processed on your own device.