Free tool · runs in your browser
Word Counter
Paste or type text and see the counts update live. Useful for essays, meta descriptions, social posts and subtitle limits.
How the counts are calculated
- Words — runs of non-whitespace characters.
- Characters — every character, including spaces.
- Characters without spaces — letters, digits and punctuation with whitespace removed.
- Sentences — groups ending in a period, question mark or exclamation mark.
- Paragraphs — blocks separated by a blank line.
- Reading time — words divided by 200 per minute.
Speaking is slower, roughly 130 words per minute, so a five-minute talk is about 650 words.
Where counts actually matter
Common editorial limits are guidelines, not laws: page titles around 60 characters, meta descriptions around 155 characters, social posts that vary by platform, and academic word limits that are enforced exactly. For video and podcast scripts, plan by speaking time rather than reading time.
For search content, there is no ideal word count. Matching the depth of the pages already ranking for an intent matters far more than hitting a number.
Why two tools disagree
Word counts differ because tokenizers differ. Hyphenated compounds may count as one word or two; numbers and emoji may be included or skipped; some tools count CJK characters individually while others split on spaces.
This counter is optimized for space-delimited languages. A long Chinese or Japanese paragraph without spaces will report very few words, so use the character counts for those languages instead.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text uploaded?
No. Counting happens in JavaScript on the page and the text never leaves your browser.
How is reading time estimated?
At 200 words per minute, a common average for adult silent reading. Speaking time is closer to 130 words per minute.
Does it count emoji correctly?
Emoji are counted as JavaScript string characters, which means most emoji count as two. That is the same convention many text fields use, but it can differ from grapheme-based counters.
Is there an ideal word count for SEO?
No fixed number. Cover the intent completely and stop. Long pages that repeat themselves are not rewarded for length.
Does it work for Chinese or Japanese text?
The word count is space-based, so CJK text without spaces will look like one word. Use the character counts for those languages.