Toolsel

Word Counter

Runs in your browser

Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with reading time.

Text

Words

0

Characters

0

Characters (no spaces)

0

Sentences

0

Paragraphs

0

Lines

0

Reading time

0 sec

Speaking time

0 sec

What is a Word Counter?

A word counter splits text on whitespace and counts the pieces — simple in concept, but useful constantly: essays and articles usually have a target word count, social posts and meta descriptions have hard limits, and cover letters are judged partly on length. This tool counts words alongside characters, sentences, paragraphs, and lines, plus estimated reading and speaking time, all from the same input.

Reading time is estimated at 200 words per minute, the commonly cited average adult silent-reading speed; speaking time at 130 words per minute, typical for a presentation or spoken reading. Both are estimates — actual pace varies by content difficulty and audience — but they are close enough to plan a talk or gauge how long an article will take to read.

How to use it

  1. Paste or type your text into the box.
  2. All counts update live as you type — no button to press.
  3. Word count is highlighted; the full breakdown sits below it.
  4. Use it to check against a target — a 500-word essay minimum, a 280-character post limit, a 3-minute talk.

Frequently asked questions

How is a word defined here?
Any run of non-whitespace characters separated by whitespace. "well-known" counts as one word since there's no space in it; most style guides agree with that convention, though some strict definitions would split on the hyphen too.
Why does my sentence count look off?
Sentences are detected by splitting on '.', '!' and '?'. Abbreviations like "Dr." or "e.g." and decimal numbers like "3.14" contain periods that aren't sentence boundaries, so the count can run slightly high on text with many abbreviations — a limitation of any punctuation-based sentence splitter, not just this one.
What reading speed does this assume?
200 words per minute for silent reading, which is the commonly cited average for adult readers of general-audience text. Technical or dense material is typically read more slowly than this estimate suggests.
Does this count words in other languages?
For space-separated languages (English, Spanish, French, and most others using the Latin, Cyrillic, or Greek scripts) the count is accurate. Languages that don't use spaces between words, like Chinese and Japanese, will show a character count that's more meaningful than the word count for those scripts.