Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in any text.
The Word Counter counts the words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs and lines in any text as you type, and estimates how long it takes to read (at 238 words per minute) and to speak aloud (at 150). It handles emoji, accented letters and Chinese, Japanese and Korean text correctly, and it never uploads what you write.
Made for writers and students. Typical uses:
A 1,000-word article takes about 4 minutes 12 seconds to read silently (at 238 words per minute) and about 6 minutes 40 seconds to deliver as a speech (at 150 words per minute), which is why a 5-minute talk should be around 750 words.
Words are groups separated by spaces, so hyphenated words such as "well-known" count as one and numbers count as words; other tools, like Microsoft Word, may differ by a few words in edge cases. Reading and speaking times are averages for adult English readers and vary from person to person.
Accuracy: Results follow documented rules and are tested with known inputs. Review the output before relying on it.
Expert Tip
Aim for a word count that fully answers the question, not a fixed target. For meta descriptions keep to about 155 characters, and check character limits with the "characters" figure, not the word count.
The Word Counter treats a word as a group of characters separated by spaces that contains at least one letter or number. That rule is simple, and it has consequences worth knowing. A hyphenated term such as well-known is one word, a lone dash or an emoji is not counted, and numbers like 2026 are words. Chinese, Japanese and Korean text has no spaces between words, so each character counts as one word, which matches how word processors count it.
Different programs apply slightly different rules, so the same text can differ by a few words between this tool, Microsoft Word, Google Docs and a CMS. If a submission has a strict limit, count with the tool the recipient will use, and leave a small margin.
Beyond the word count, the tool reports the numbers writers and editors ask for most, all updated as you type.
The time estimates are averages for adult English readers, not guarantees. At 238 words a minute, 500 words take about 2 minutes 6 seconds to read and 1,000 words about 4 minutes 12 seconds. Spoken at 150 words a minute, the same texts take 3 minutes 20 seconds and 6 minutes 40 seconds. Use the speaking figure for speeches, podcasts and video scripts, and add time for pauses, slides and demonstrations.
Technical material, dense legal text and second-language readers all read slower than the average, so treat the reading time as a lower bound for difficult content.
Word targets depend on the format. How long should it be? A word count guide lists typical lengths for essays, blog posts, emails and social posts. As a rule of thumb, a meta description is about 25 words, a short blog post 600 to 900, and a long guide 1,500 or more, but your instructions or audience always come first.
For character limits on social posts, SMS and titles, use the Character Counter, which shows your length against each platform's limit. When you need to shorten a draft, the Text Summarizer shows which sentences carry the most weight.
Everything is counted in your browser; the text is not uploaded or stored, so you can paste essays, contracts and drafts. Copy the statistics with one click to paste into a brief or a submission form.
Count after your last edit, not before, and count only the part the limit applies to: many limits exclude references, captions or the title. Remove headers and footnotes you do not want counted before you paste.
Typical lengths for essays, articles, meta descriptions, social posts and speeches, plus how reading time and speaking time are calculated.
Side-by-side examples of a website, a book and a journal article in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago style, and the small rules that trip people up.
How AI detectors work, why they make mistakes in both directions, who is most at risk of false accusations, and how to use a detection score responsibly.
Explore more in Text Tools, read the guides and articles, or see how we test our tools.
Encode and decode Base64 strings instantly.
Best for encoding binary data for email and web transmission
Convert text to uppercase, lowercase, title case, sentence case, and more.
Best for converting titles and headlines to title case
Count characters, letters, and spaces in any text.
Best for fitting a post, caption or bio inside a platform limit
Remove duplicate lines from any text instantly.
Best for cleaning a merged email or contact list
Convert hexadecimal values to readable text and vice versa.
Best for decoding a hex-dumped string found in a browser dev tools network request