Word Counter Online Free
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type or paste.
How to use this tool
- 1Paste or type your text into the box.
- 2Watch the word and character counts update live.
- 3Check sentence, paragraph and reading-time figures below the totals.
- 4Edit until you hit your target length.
About this tool
Almost every piece of writing comes with a limit attached. University essays specify a word count with a tolerance band. Journals cap abstracts at 250 words. Grant applications, job applications and scholarship forms all count. Meta descriptions want roughly 155 characters and a tweet still thinks in characters rather than words. Writing blind and checking at the end usually means a painful edit, whereas watching the number move as you write keeps you close to target throughout. This counter updates instantly, counts words the way a human would rather than by naive splitting, and adds sentence and paragraph totals plus an estimated reading time based on average adult reading speed. Nothing you type is sent anywhere; the counting happens entirely inside your browser.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are words counted?
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Any run of characters separated by whitespace counts as one word, which matches how Word and Google Docs count.
Does it count spaces as characters?
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Both figures are shown: characters including spaces and characters excluding spaces, since different forms ask for different things.
Is my text stored?
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No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded, logged or saved.