Text tool
Word Counter
Paste or type any text to see live word, character, sentence, and paragraph counts, plus reading time, keyword density, and how close you are to common limits. Nothing leaves your browser.
Counted locally in your browser as you type. Your text is never uploaded or stored.
Reading and speaking time
Defaults are 238 wpm for silent reading and 150 wpm for speaking aloud. Adjust them to match your audience.
Common limits
- Twitter / X post0 / 280 characters
280 characters remaining
- Meta description0 / 160 characters
160 characters remaining
- Instagram caption0 / 2,200 characters
2,200 characters remaining
- College essay (Common App)0 / 650 words
650 words remaining
Why word count matters
Most writing has a target length. Essays and applications set word limits, social platforms cap characters, search engines truncate long page titles and descriptions, and editors commission articles by the word. Knowing your count as you write saves a last-minute scramble to cut or pad a draft, and it keeps a speech or presentation inside its time slot.
Counts are also a quick health check on a piece of writing. A high average word length or very long sentences can signal dense, hard-to-read prose, while a keyword appearing far more often than anything else may read as repetitive.
How this tool counts
Words are found by splitting your text on whitespace and keeping each piece that contains at least one letter or number in any language. That means "well-known" and "don't" each count as one word, a number such as "2026" counts as a word, and a lone dash or ellipsis does not. Leading and trailing punctuation is stripped before working out unique words, average length, and the longest word.
Characters are counted as Unicode code points, so accented letters and most symbols count once each. Some emoji and combined characters are built from several code points and will count as more than one. Sentences are split at a period, exclamation mark, or question mark followed by a space or the end of the text, so abbreviations like "e.g." or "Dr." mid-sentence can add an extra sentence to the total. Paragraphs are blocks of text separated by at least one blank line.
Different word processors apply slightly different rules, so a count from Google Docs or Microsoft Word may differ by a few words on text with unusual punctuation. For most documents the numbers will match.
Typical reading and speaking speeds
A 2019 meta-analysis of reading studies put the average adult silent reading speed for non-fiction at about 238 words per minute, with fiction a little faster at around 260. Skimming is faster still, and technical material with tables or code is usually read more slowly, so treat the estimate as a guide rather than a guarantee.
Conversational speech runs at roughly 120 to 160 words per minute. Presenters and audiobook narrators often aim for 150 words per minute, which is the default used for speaking time here. A five-minute talk is therefore about 750 words, and a twenty-minute keynote is close to 3,000.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. Everything is counted in your browser with JavaScript as you type. The text is never sent to a server, saved, or shared, and it disappears when you close or refresh the page.
Do hyphenated words count as one word?
Yes. Because words are split on spaces, a hyphenated term such as "state-of-the-art" counts as a single word. Most word processors do the same, although a few style guides and competition rules count each hyphenated part separately.
How many words are on a page?
With a standard 12-point font and one-inch margins, a single-spaced page holds roughly 500 words and a double-spaced page about 250. Handwritten pages and documents with headings or images hold fewer.
How many words per minute do people read?
Adults typically read between 200 and 300 words per minute. This tool defaults to 238, the average found across studies of adult non-fiction reading, but you can change the rate to suit younger readers, second-language readers, or fast skimmers.
Why does the keyword table ignore some words?
Very common words like "the", "and", and "of" are left out so the table highlights the terms that actually describe your topic. The density percentage is still calculated against the full word count.