Free tool
Word & Character Counter
Paste or type your text below to see live counts for characters, words, sentences and paragraphs, plus an estimated reading time.
Nothing you enter is ever uploaded or stored. Every bit of processing on this page happens locally, in your browser.
Word & Character Counter
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Characters
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Characters (no spaces)
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Words
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Reading time
How to count words and characters
Paste or type text into the box. The counts update as you type: characters with and without spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs and an estimated reading time. Clear empties the box.
How the counts work
- Words are anything separated by spaces or line breaks.
- Sentences end with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, so abbreviations such as "e.g." can push the count up.
- Paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
- Reading time assumes 200 words a minute, a comfortable pace for most readers, rounded up.
Limits worth knowing
Lots of places cap how much you can write. Some count characters and others count words. A few common ones:
- A page title of around 50 to 60 characters usually shows in full in Google results, and a meta description of about 150 to 160 characters.
- Posts on X are limited to 280 characters on a standard account.
- A LinkedIn post can run to 3,000 characters, but only the first couple of lines show before "see more".
- A text message splits into separate parts after 160 characters.
Limits change, so check the platform itself when it matters. For essays, applications and articles the word count is usually what matters, and the reading time is a quick check that a blog post or email isn't longer than it needs to be.