Word Counter
Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
About the word counter
Live counts for words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines, updated as you type. Alongside them: an estimated reading time at roughly 225 words per minute, a speaking time at about 150, a count of unique words, average word length, and the words you use most often.
Everything is calculated in the page. Text you paste in is never uploaded, which matters if you are checking a draft that isn't public yet.
Common limits worth knowing
- Meta description β around 155 characters before search engines truncate it.
- Title tag β roughly 60 characters.
- Twitter/X post β 280 characters on a free account.
- Instagram caption β 2,200 characters, though only the first 125 show before "more".
- SMS β 160 characters per message segment.
- UCAS personal statement β 4,000 characters or 47 lines.
- Conference talk β a 20-minute slot is about 3,000 spoken words.
Frequently asked questions
How is reading time calculated?
Word count divided by 225 words per minute, which is a common average for adult silent reading of general text. Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, roughly the pace of clear presentation delivery. Both are estimates β dense or technical material reads slower.
Does the character count include spaces?
Both figures are shown. "Characters" includes spaces and line breaks; "No spaces" excludes all whitespace. Most platform limits, including Twitter/X and SMS, count spaces, so use the larger number.
How are words counted?
Any run of non-space characters counts as one word, which is the same rule Microsoft Word and Google Docs use. A hyphenated term like "well-known" counts as one word.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. The counting happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is transmitted, logged or stored, and closing the tab discards it.