Word & Character Counter
Paste any text to instantly count words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and get reading and speaking time estimates.
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Characters
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Time estimates
Reading time
at 238 words/min
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Speaking time
at 130 words/min
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Top keywords
Start typing to see keyword density.
Why Word and Character Counts Matter
Word counts are essential for meeting requirements in academic essays, articles, blog posts, social media captions, and cover letters. Character counts matter for SEO meta descriptions (under 160 characters), tweet limits (280 characters), and SMS (160 characters per segment).
Common Limits to Know
- Tweet / X post: 280 characters
- SEO meta description: 150–160 characters
- SEO title tag: 50–60 characters
- LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters before "see more"
- SMS segment: 160 characters
- University essay (typical): 1,000–5,000 words
Frequently Asked Questions
Words are counted by splitting the text on whitespace and filtering out empty segments. Hyphenated words (e.g. "well-known") are counted as one word.
Reading time uses the average adult silent reading speed of 238 words per minute (WPM), based on research published in Reading Research Quarterly.
Speaking time uses an average of 130 WPM, which reflects a comfortable, clear presentation pace.
Sentences are counted by detecting punctuation that ends a sentence (., !, ?) followed by a space or end of text. Abbreviations like "Dr." may slightly over-count.
A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by one or more blank lines. Single line breaks within a block are not counted as new paragraphs.