In short: A word counter counts the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in a text and estimates reading time, typically at about 238 words per minute for adult silent reading.
About Word & Character Counter
Whether you are trimming an essay to a word limit, keeping a meta description under 160 characters or checking that a social post fits, you need an accurate count. This counter updates live as you type and shows words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines.
Words are counted with Unicode-aware rules, so hyphenated words, contractions and accented letters are handled sensibly, and Chinese or Japanese characters (which are not separated by spaces) are counted individually. Reading time assumes an average adult silent reading speed of about 238 words per minute; speaking time uses about 140 words per minute, typical for presentations.
How to use Word & Character Counter
- Type or paste your text into the box.
- Read the live statistics underneath.
- Check the common-limits list to see whether your text fits a tweet, meta description or SMS.
- Look at the most frequent words to spot repetition.
Examples
Paste your draft description. If the character count is over 160, search engines may truncate it, so shorten it until the limit line shows a tick.
A 700-word talk takes about 5 minutes to deliver at a comfortable 140 words per minute.
Frequently asked questions
How are words counted?
A word is any run of letters, digits, apostrophes or hyphens. Punctuation and extra spaces do not create extra words. CJK characters each count as one word.
Does it count emoji correctly?
Yes. Characters are counted as user-perceived characters (grapheme clusters), so a family emoji or a flag counts as one, not as several code units.
Is my text stored anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser and the text is never sent or saved.
Why do other tools give slightly different numbers?
Word counters differ on edge cases such as hyphenated words, numbers and URLs. Differences of a percent or two are normal.
Updated November 2026 · Free, no signup · How we build and test tools