Count words, characters and reading time
Paste or type text and see live counts of words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines, plus estimated reading and speaking time and your most-used words. Works with any language and never sends your text anywhere.
How to use the Word Counter
- Paste your text or start typing in the input box.
- Counts update instantly below.
- Check reading time (238 words per minute) and speaking time (150 wpm).
- Use the most-used-words table to spot repetition.
How words and characters are counted
A word is any run of letters, digits, apostrophes or hyphens separated by spaces or punctuation, using Unicode letter classes so that French, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and Chinese text are handled sensibly (for languages written without spaces, counts are approximate). Characters are counted as Unicode code points, so an emoji counts as one character; "characters without spaces" excludes every whitespace character including newlines.
Reading and speaking time
The reading estimate uses 238 words per minute, the average adult silent-reading speed for non-fiction found in a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies. Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, a comfortable presentation pace; fast speakers reach 180, audiobooks average around 155. Halve the speaking figure for a very slow, emphatic delivery.
Common limits to check against
| Platform / task | Limit |
|---|---|
| Twitter/X post | 280 characters |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters |
| Meta description (SEO) | ~155 characters |
| Page title (SEO) | ~60 characters |
| UCAS personal statement | 4,000 characters / 47 lines |
| Common App essay | 650 words |
| Abstract (most journals) | 250 words |
Most-used words
The table lists words longer than three letters by frequency, which is a quick way to notice overused terms in an essay or a keyword-stuffed article. Stop words such as "the" and "and" are excluded by the length rule.
Frequently asked questions
Does it count words in languages other than English?
Yes. Any language with spaces between words is counted accurately; Chinese, Japanese and Thai are approximated by character runs.
Are spaces counted as characters?
Both figures are shown: characters including spaces, and characters excluding all whitespace.
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser as you type; nothing is transmitted.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 238 per minute, the average adult reading speed for non-fiction.
Privacy
This tool runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly and the Canvas/File APIs. Your files are never uploaded to ToolFlint or any third party; you can verify this in your browser's network tab or by switching to airplane mode after the page loads. Read how we process files.
Last updated 2026-09-23.