Essays and assignments
Keep an essay, application statement or report inside a required word range, and see sentence and paragraph counts while you edit.
Free Word Counter — Count Words & Characters Online
Type or paste your text below and get an instant count of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, plus reading time and your most used keywords. Everything is calculated in your browser — your text never leaves your device.
Start counting
Runs locally in your browser
No API key
Free, no sign-up required
Your text
Character limit
No character limit set
Statistics
0Words
0Characters
0Characters (no spaces)
0Sentences
0Paragraphs
0Lines
0Unique words
0Avg. word length
0Words per sentence
—Longest word
0 secReading time
0 secSpeaking time
Top keywords
Start typing to see your most used words.
The guide
Word Counter Online: Count Words, Characters and Reading Time
Count words and characters as you type, check limits for social posts and search snippets, and see which words you use most.
What Is a Word Counter?
A word counter tells you how long a piece of text is. Paste an essay, an email, a caption or a product description and it reports the number of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs straight away.
Length matters more often than people expect. Assignments have word limits, search results cut off long titles and descriptions, and social platforms cap post length. Checking the count as you write is quicker than guessing and trimming afterwards.
Popular Uses
Counting words and characters is useful whenever text has to fit a target length or be estimated for time.
SEO titles and descriptions
Check that a page title or meta description stays short enough to display well in search results, and review which keywords you repeat.
Social posts and messages
Fit a post, caption, bio or text message inside a platform limit with a live bar that shows how many characters remain.
Character Limits to Keep in Mind
Limits change over time and some platforms measure length in their own way, so check the platform if a post is close to the edge. These are the figures the presets above use, plus a few others.
| Where | Typical limit | What to consider |
|---|---|---|
| X post | 280 characters | Links and some emoji are counted differently by the platform. |
| Page title | About 60 characters | Search engines shorten titles by display width, so this is a guide rather than a hard cutoff. |
| Meta description | About 160 characters | Longer descriptions are often truncated in search results. |
| SMS | 160 characters | Messages with emoji or non-Latin characters fit fewer characters per segment. |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters | Only the first lines show before the caption is expanded. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters | Lead with your main point, since the feed shows only a short preview. |
| YouTube title | 100 characters | Shorter titles are less likely to be cut off on mobile. |
How to Count Words Online for Free
- Type or paste your text into the box. The word and character counts update as you go.
- Read the statistics panel for characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines, reading time and speaking time.
- Choose a limit preset, or enter your own number, to see how many characters you have left or are over.
- Check the keyword table to see which words or phrases you repeat most, and switch on Ignore common words to hide filler.
- Copy your text or the statistics, or download the text as a .txt file.
Complete Guide to Word and Character Counts
Different tools count slightly differently, so it helps to know what the numbers here mean before you compare them with another program or a submission form.
How words are counted
A word is any run of characters between spaces or line breaks that contains at least one letter or number. Hyphenated terms and contractions count as one word, and stray symbols on their own are ignored.
Characters and spaces
Characters includes spaces, tabs and line breaks. Characters without spaces removes all whitespace. Use the first for platform limits and the second when a form or guideline asks for it.
Sentences and paragraphs
A sentence ends at a period, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a space or the end of the text. A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by a blank line.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time uses about 238 words per minute and speaking time about 150. They are estimates, and technical or unfamiliar material usually takes longer to read.
How This Tool Works
Each time the text changes, the page splits it into words, sentences and paragraphs, tallies the results and redraws the statistics. It then builds the keyword table from the same list of words.
Tips & Best Practices
- Aim for the length the task actually needs, not a round number. Cutting filler usually improves writing more than adding words does.
- Check limits with the same text you will publish. Adding a link, hashtag or signature afterwards can push you over.
- Use the keyword table to spot words you lean on too often, then vary your wording. A phrase repeated many times reads badly to people and does not help rankings.
- Shorter sentences are easier to read. If words per sentence is high, look for places to split a long sentence in two.
- Compare counts with the tool your school or client uses if the limit is strict, since programs can treat hyphens, numbers and symbols differently.
Limitations & Privacy
Privacy
All counting happens locally in your browser. Your text is not uploaded, sent to a server or stored, and it is gone when you close or refresh the page.
Limitations
Word counts rely on spaces, so languages written without them, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, will show a low word count while the character count stays accurate. Platform limits are approximate and can change.
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