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Word & Character Counter

Real-time word count, character count, sentence count, paragraph count, and reading time. Start typing or paste your text below.

Word & Character Counter
0Words
0Characters
0No spaces
0Sentences
0Paragraphs
—Reading time
0Lines
0Unique words

How the word counter works

This tool counts words by splitting your text on whitespace — any consecutive run of non-space characters counts as one word. Character count includes every keystroke including punctuation and spaces. The "no spaces" count strips spaces and tabs so you get the raw character count that platforms like Twitter's API use internally.

Reading time is calculated at 238 words per minute, which is the scientific average for adult silent reading (Brysbaert, 2019). This is more accurate than the commonly cited 200 wpm figure. A 500-word piece takes roughly 2 minutes to read; a 2,000-word article takes about 8 minutes.

Word & character limits by platform

Platform / Use caseLimit
Twitter / X post280 characters
LinkedIn post3,000 characters
Meta title (SEO)~60 characters
Meta description (SEO)~160 characters
College essay (Common App)650 words max
Blog post (ranks well for SEO)1,500–2,500 words
Short story1,000–7,500 words

Frequently Asked Questions

This tool splits on whitespace, which works correctly for English and most Western European languages. For Chinese, Japanese, and Korean — where words aren't separated by spaces — the word count will show the character count instead. For Arabic and Hebrew, it works correctly since words are space-delimited. The character count is always accurate regardless of language.
Small differences are normal. Word processors often handle hyphenated words, URLs, and numbers differently — for example, "state-of-the-art" might count as 1 word or 4 depending on the tool. Our counter treats anything between spaces as one word. The difference is usually less than 1% and won't matter for anything practical.
No. Everything happens inside your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to any server. You can verify this by turning off your Wi-Fi after the page loads — the tool continues to work perfectly. We don't log, store, or analyze anything you type here.
We use 238 words per minute as the baseline — this comes from a 2019 meta-analysis by Brysbaert (published in the Journal of Memory and Language) that averaged across 190 studies with 18,573 participants. Actual reading speed varies significantly: slow readers average around 150 wpm, fast readers 300+ wpm. For content with heavy technical terminology, reduce the estimate by 20–30%.