Word counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs as you type — results update in real time. Supports CJK text with reading time and keyword frequency analysis.
What is the Word Counter?
The word counter tallies words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in any block of text. It updates live as you type or paste, so you always see accurate counts without hitting a button. Everything runs in your browser — your text is never sent to a server.
How does the Word Counter work?
A word is any sequence of characters separated by whitespace. Hyphenated compounds like "state-of-the-art" count as one word. The counter also respects scripts that don't use spaces between words, like Japanese or Chinese — for those, the character count is usually more meaningful than the word count.
When should you use a Word Counter?
Writers use word counters to hit assigned lengths for essays, blog posts, and academic papers. Social media managers check character counts against platform limits (Twitter's 280, LinkedIn's 3,000, Instagram captions). SEO specialists check meta titles and descriptions before they get truncated in search results. Students cite them for homework that specifies word counts.
Common Uses
- Blog and article writing: Check word count in real time against a target (1,000, 1,500, or 2,500 words) while drafting SEO content.
- Academic essay compliance: Verify that an essay, dissertation chapter, or assignment meets the minimum and maximum word count requirements.
- Social media copywriting: Count characters in tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Instagram captions to stay within platform limits before pasting.
- Resume and cover letter trimming: Identify and cut excess words from a CV or cover letter to keep it within the recommended 400–600 word range.
- Reading time estimation: Calculate the approximate reading time of an article to decide if it suits your audience's expected attention span.
- Translation and localisation scoping: Word counts are the standard billing unit for translation projects — count source text accurately before requesting quotes.
- Speech and presentation scripting: At 130 words per minute, a 10-minute speech requires ~1,300 words — count your script to ensure it fits the time slot.
- Readability assessment: Use the character-per-word ratio and sentence count to estimate Flesch-Kincaid score and adjust complexity for your audience.
FAQ
How does the word counter work?
The counter splits your text on whitespace to count words, counts every character including spaces for the character total, and uses punctuation patterns to estimate sentences. Paragraphs are blocks of text separated by blank lines.
Does it work for Japanese and other CJK text?
Yes. Since Japanese, Chinese, and Korean don't use spaces between words, the character count is more relevant. The reading time estimate for Japanese is based on characters per minute rather than words per minute.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. All counting happens in your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device.
Does the word counter store my text?
No. All counting happens client-side in your browser. Your text never leaves your device and is not stored after you close the tab.
How does the word counter handle Japanese and Chinese text?
For CJK languages that don't use spaces, the character count is the primary metric. Reading time for Japanese is estimated at approximately 500 characters per minute, reflecting typical reading speed for native readers.
By the Numbers
- The average adult reads approximately 238 words per minute (UCSD meta-analysis of 190 studies, 2019)
- A standard double-spaced manuscript page contains approximately 250–275 words (publishing industry standard)
- Google tends to rank long-form content of 1,500+ words significantly higher for informational and how-to queries
- The Flesch-Kincaid readability formula was developed in 1975 for the U.S. Navy to assess instructional material difficulty