Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and reading time the moment you paste.
Counting the selected text only.
- Words
- 0
- Characters
- 0
- No spaces
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Reading time
- 0:00
Free forever, no sign-up and no limits, and this tool installs on its own so you can keep it on your home screen.
This word counter reports the number of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in your text as you type, along with an estimated reading time. It counts by the Unicode segmentation rules, so emoji, accented letters and non-Latin scripts are measured the way a reader would count them rather than the way a computer stores them.
How to use it
- Paste your textType directly into the box or paste from a document, email or web page. Formatting is ignored; only the text matters.
- Read the countsWords, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time update on every keystroke. There is no button to press.
- Copy or clearUse Copy text to take your edited version back with you, or Clear to empty the box and start again.
What this tool is for
Length limits are everywhere. A meta description that runs past roughly 155 characters gets truncated in search results. An academic abstract has a hard word ceiling. A client brief asks for eight hundred words and means it. A social post is cut off mid-sentence if you overrun. In each case you need a number before you commit, and you need it without opening a word processor.
That is the job here. The counts update live, six measurements are visible at once, and the Will it fit? bars show at a glance whether the text fits an SMS, an X post, a meta description or an Instagram caption, turning red the moment it does not. Highlight part of the text and the numbers count just the selection.
What each number means
Words counts word-like segments under the Unicode standard, which is the count most editors and clients have in mind. Characters counts what you see on screen, including spaces and line breaks, this is the figure that matters for social posts and meta descriptions. No spaces strips all whitespace first, which is what some form fields and older database columns actually limit.
Sentences counts runs of text ending in a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis, plus any trailing fragment. Abbreviations like "e.g." will inflate it slightly; no simple counter avoids that. Paragraphs counts blocks separated by a blank line, which matches how text pastes out of most documents.Reading time is words at 225 per minute, rounded to the second.
Limitations worth knowing
This is a counter, not a checker. It will not tell you whether your sentences are too long, whether your spelling is right, or whether the piece is any good. It also has no memory, there is no autosave, no history and no draft recovery, so keep your actual writing somewhere designed for that and use this to measure it.
Because the counts recalculate on every keystroke, extremely large inputs can make typing feel less responsive on older phones. Pasting rather than typing avoids the issue entirely.
Questions people ask
How do you decide what counts as a word?
The counter follows the Unicode text-segmentation standard and counts every segment that standard classes as word-like. That means "don't" is one word, "state-of-the-art" is counted as its component words, and languages that do not separate words with spaces (Japanese, Thai, Chinese) are segmented correctly rather than counted as one enormous word.
Why does my word processor give a different number?
Most word processors split on whitespace, which is faster but disagrees on hyphenated compounds, contractions with punctuation, numbers with separators and any script without spaces. For plain English prose the two methods usually agree to within a percent; for anything else the segmented count is the more defensible one.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 225 words per minute, which is a common average for adult silent reading of general prose. It is an estimate, not a measurement: technical material reads slower and light fiction reads faster, so treat it as a rough guide rather than a promise.
Do emoji count as one character?
Yes. A flag or a family emoji is stored as several code points but displays as one character, and this tool counts what you see. Tools that report string length instead will tell you a single emoji is two, four or seven characters.
Is there a limit on how much text I can count?
No limit is imposed. Very large documents (tens of megabytes) may make typing feel sluggish because the count is recalculated on every keystroke, but the numbers stay correct.
Does it count Japanese or Chinese correctly?
Yes. Those scripts do not put spaces between words, so a counter that splits on whitespace reports one enormous word for an entire paragraph. The segmentation rules used here find the boundaries a reader would, which is why the figure matches what a native speaker would count.
Can I use this to check a character limit?
Yes. The Will it fit? bars track four common ceilings live: 160 characters for a single SMS, 280 for an X post, 160 for a search meta description and 2,200 for an Instagram caption. A bar that turns red means you are over. For other limits, the two character counts (with and without spaces) cover most fields.
Can I count just part of my text?
Yes. Highlight any part of the text in the box and every number switches to the selection, with a note saying so. Clear the selection and the counts return to the whole text. It is the quickest way to measure one paragraph inside a longer draft.