Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and reading time as you type.
How to use Word Counter
- Type or paste your text into the box, or open a .txt file.
- Read the live counts: words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
- Check Top words to spot repetition before you publish.
How it works
The counter updates on every keystroke and works entirely in your browser. A word is a run of letters or digits; hyphenated words ("well-known") and contractions ("don’t") count as one word, the way most word processors count them. Where the browser supports it, word boundaries come from the Unicode-aware Intl.Segmenter, so languages without spaces between words are handled better than with a simple split on spaces.
Characters are counted as user-perceived characters, so an emoji or an accented letter counts once. Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed for non-fiction found in a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies (Brysbaert); speaking time assumes about 140 words per minute.
Example
"Don’t panic: it’s a well-known 3-step fix." counts as 7 words: don’t, panic, it’s, a, well-known, 3-step, fix. It has 42 characters including spaces and 1 sentence.
Frequently asked questions
How are words counted?
Any run of letters or numbers counts as one word. Apostrophes and hyphens inside a word do not split it, so "don’t" and "well-known" are one word each. Punctuation and symbols on their own are not words.
Does it count spaces as characters?
Both numbers are shown: Characters includes spaces and line breaks, No spaces excludes all whitespace. Many essay and form limits mean characters including spaces; check your requirements.
Why might Microsoft Word or Google Docs show a slightly different number?
Each program has its own rules for things like URLs, numbers with decimals and dashes between words. Differences are usually a few words in a long document.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. The text stays in this page; nothing is uploaded or stored. Closing the tab discards it.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 238 words per minute, rounded to the nearest second. Real reading speed varies with the reader and the difficulty of the text.
Limitations
- Very large texts (several megabytes) may make typing feel slow on older phones; paste once and read the totals.
- Sentence detection follows Unicode rules and can split at abbreviations such as "e.g." in some browsers.
Last reviewed November 9, 2026. How we build and test tools.