Word Counter & Character Counter
Type or paste your text to see live word, character, sentence, and paragraph counts, reading and speaking time, and how it measures against common character limits.
Character limits
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About this word and character counter
Every stat here updates as you type, with nothing to click and nothing to wait for. Word count splits your text on whitespace; character counts are shown both with and without spaces, since platforms and style guides vary in which one they mean by "character limit." Sentence count looks for runs of period, question mark, and exclamation point punctuation, and paragraph count looks for blank lines between blocks of text — both reasonable approximations of how people actually write, though neither is perfect (more on that below).
Reading and speaking time are separate estimates because they're genuinely different paces. Reading time assumes a silent-reading speed of about 225 words per minute, a commonly cited average for adult readers of general text online. Speaking time assumes roughly 130 words per minute, closer to a natural, unhurried speaking pace — useful for timing a speech, a video script, or a presentation rather than just estimating how long a reader will spend on the page. Both are estimates based on averages; your actual pace, and your audience's, will vary with content difficulty and familiarity.
The character-limit checker compares your current character count (including spaces, which is how virtually every platform counts against its limit) to six common limits: SMS messages, X (formerly Twitter) posts, SEO meta descriptions, YouTube titles, the point a Facebook post gets truncated behind "See more," and Instagram captions. Each shows how much room you have left, or how far over you've gone, so you can trim copy to fit before you paste it somewhere that will cut it off or reject it.
Sentence detection here is a heuristic, not a full grammar parser, and it has a known blind spot: abbreviations like "Mr.", "e.g.", or "U.S." contain periods that look identical to sentence endings, so text full of abbreviations can inflate the sentence count. This is a limitation shared by most simple word-counting tools, and it's worth keeping in mind rather than treating the sentence count as exact for heavily abbreviated text.
Unlike most tools on this site, nothing here is saved between visits. People paste all kinds of personal and professional writing into a word counter, so this page deliberately starts empty every time rather than remembering what you typed — and of course, nothing is ever uploaded; every count happens locally as you type.
Frequently asked questions
How is reading time calculated?
Word count divided by an assumed reading speed of 225 words per minute, a commonly cited average for adult readers. It's an estimate — dense or technical text will typically take longer to read than the estimate suggests.
Why is speaking time different from reading time?
Speaking time assumes about 130 words per minute, a natural unhurried speaking pace, which is slower than silent reading speed. It's meant for timing speeches, presentations, or scripts rather than estimating how long someone takes to read a page.
Why does the sentence count seem too high sometimes?
The counter looks for periods, question marks, and exclamation points to detect sentence endings, but it can't distinguish those from periods in abbreviations like "Mr.", "e.g.", or "U.S." Text with many abbreviations will show an inflated sentence count.
Do character limits count spaces?
Yes. The character-limit checker uses your character count including spaces, since that's how SMS, social platforms, and SEO tools actually count against their limits.
Is my text saved or uploaded anywhere?
No. Unlike some other tools on this site, this one doesn't save anything between visits, since people often paste private or sensitive writing here. Everything is counted locally in your browser and nothing is ever sent anywhere.