¶Word & Character Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in your text — with an instant reading-time estimate.
Counts update as you type, which is the point — you can watch a draft approach a limit instead of discovering afterwards that it overshot by two hundred words.
Why this disagrees with Word
Every tool counts differently and none of them is wrong exactly. They disagree about hyphenated words, standalone numbers, and whether a heading is a sentence. Expect a discrepancy of well under one percent against Word or Google Docs.
Where a limit is contractual, count in whatever tool the person imposing it will use. That sounds obvious and it is still the reason briefs get returned.
The limits worth knowing
Meta descriptions are measured in characters, roughly 120 to 160. Academic abstracts are typically capped at 250 words. Agency blog commissions usually land between 800 and 1,500. Characters are shown here both with and without spaces because submission forms and CMS fields count them differently, and the difference is often exactly what pushes you over.
On the length question
The advice that longer posts rank better confuses correlation with cause. Thorough pages tend to be longer because thoroughness takes words — padding a thin page does not make it thorough, and it is fairly obvious to a reader when it has been done.
Write until the question is answered, then stop.
Reading time
Calculated at around 200 words per minute, which is a reasonable average for adults reading prose on a screen. Technical material is slower and skimming is much faster, so treat it as a guide rather than a promise — and remember it cannot see images, code blocks or anything the reader has to stop and think about.
Nothing is stored. The text stays in the browser, which matters if you are drafting something confidential.
This tool is provided free of charge for general information and convenience only. It runs in your browser and we do not store the data you enter. We make no guarantee as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of any result, and accept no liability for any loss, damage, or decision arising from its use — use it at your own risk. See our Terms & Conditions.