Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with reading time — instantly and privately in your browser.
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Words
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Characters
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No spaces
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Reading time
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Speaking time
Whether you're keeping an essay under a limit, hitting a minimum for an assignment, or checking a meta description fits, you need to know exactly how much text you have. Word Counter tallies words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type — and estimates reading time — entirely in your browser.
How to use word counter
- 1. Type or paste your text into the box.
- 2. The counts update live as you write.
- 3. Read off words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
When to use Word Counter
Stay within a limit
Keep an essay, application or bio under a strict word or character cap.
Hit a minimum
Check that a piece meets a required word count before you submit it.
Fit a character budget
Make sure a tweet, title tag or meta description fits its character limit.
Common limits, at a glance
A post on X fits 280 characters (most emoji count as two there). A Google search result shows roughly 50–60 characters of a page title and 150–160 of its description. An Instagram caption can run to 2,200 characters, a LinkedIn post to 3,000. A single SMS holds 160 characters — but only 70 as soon as it contains a letter outside the basic GSM alphabet, which includes Romanian ă, â, î, ș and ț, so a Romanian text with diacritics is split into more messages sooner.
How the numbers are counted
Words are runs of characters separated by spaces or line breaks, so "well-known" is one word and a URL is one word. Characters are counted the way you see them: an emoji, a flag or a letter with an accent counts as one, even though computers store some of them as several code units. Sentences end at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis; a line that is only a list number doesn't count as a sentence. Reading time assumes 230 words per minute, speaking time 140 — a typical pace for a presentation or a video voice-over.
Frequently asked questions
Does it count characters with and without spaces?
Yes — you get both totals, which matters when a limit is specified one way or the other.
How is reading time estimated?
From the word count at an average silent reading speed, so it's a good rough guide rather than an exact figure.
Is my text uploaded?
No — everything is counted in your browser, so your writing stays private.
Why does another counter show a different number of characters?
Usually because of emoji or accented letters: some tools count the internal code units (an emoji can be 2 or more), while this one counts what you see. Line breaks are counted as characters in "Characters" and ignored in "No spaces".
Does it work for languages other than English?
Yes. Any language that separates words with spaces is counted correctly, including Romanian, German, French or Polish with all their accents.