Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines as you type, with reading and speaking time estimates and a breakdown of the words you use most. Works on any language and never uploads your text.
Text ToolsHow to use Word Counter
- Paste or type your text into the editor.
- Every count updates as you type — there is no button to press.
- Read the reading and speaking estimates to check a piece against a time limit.
- Scan the most-used words list to spot repetition before you publish.
- Copy the text back out, or clear it and start again.
Examples
Checking a meta description
Search engines truncate descriptions around 155-160 characters. Paste yours and watch the character count.
Fast, browser-based tools for formatting, previewing, converting and inspecting code and text. No installs, no signup, no uploads.
Timing a talk
A five-minute conference lightning talk is roughly 700 words at a comfortable pace. The speaking estimate tells you whether a draft fits.
Features
- Words, characters, characters without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines
- Reading time at 238 words per minute and speaking time at 140
- Frequency list of the words you lean on, with common filler words filtered out
- Longest word and average word length
- Unicode-aware: accented Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and CJK all count correctly
- Emoji count as one character, not two, because counting is grapheme-based
- Autosaves your draft to this browser and restores it next visit
- Runs fully client-side, so nothing you paste is uploaded
Frequently asked questions
- How is a word counted?
- A word is a run of letters or digits, optionally joined by an apostrophe, hyphen or underscore. So "state-of-the-art" and "isn't" each count as one word, which matches how word processors count.
- Why is the character count different from my editor?
- This tool counts what a reader perceives as one character. An emoji such as a flag is several UTF-16 code units, and an accented letter can be a letter plus a combining mark; both count as one here. Editors that count code units will report more.
- How are Chinese, Japanese and Korean counted?
- Those scripts do not separate words with spaces, so each ideograph is counted individually. That matches the convention publishers use for CJK word counts.
- Where do the reading and speaking speeds come from?
- Reading uses 238 words per minute, the average for silent reading of English prose in Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis. Speaking uses 140 words per minute, a comfortable presentation pace. Both are estimates; adjust for your audience.
- Does it count Markdown syntax?
- Yes — the text is counted exactly as pasted, including any markup characters. Paste the rendered text if you want a count of the prose alone.
- Is my text stored anywhere?
- Only in this browser, and only so your draft survives a reload. It is never sent to a server, and Clear removes it.
Related tools
About Word Counter
Word Counter is part of Text Tools on ToolHive, a growing collection of small, focused utilities for developers, designers and students. Count, compare, clean and transform text for writing, editing and analysis. Everything runs client-side, so your data never leaves the browser tab — which makes these tools safe to use with work-in-progress code and private content.