What a word counter measures
A word counter reads your text and tallies its parts. This one reports words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines. It also shows the average word length, your longest word, and how long the text takes to read silently and to say out loud.
How words are counted
A word is a run of letters or digits. Contractions such as don't and hyphenated words such as well-known count as one word each, and numbers count as words too, so 3.50 is one word. Emoji, accented letters and right-to-left scripts are handled. For languages written without spaces, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, the counter uses your browser's own word-boundary rules, so those counts are approximate.
Sentences end at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark that is followed by a space. Common abbreviations like Mr., Dr. and e.g. do not end a sentence, and neither do decimals. A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next one by a blank line.
Before
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
After
9 words 44 characters 36 characters without spaces 1 sentence
Reading and speaking time
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, a figure taken from research on silent reading of non-fiction in English. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a relaxed pace for a talk or a voice-over. Real speed varies with the topic, the audience and the person, so treat both numbers as planning estimates, not promises.
When it helps
- Essays and assignments that have a minimum or maximum word count.
- Blog posts and articles, where length affects how people read.
- Speeches, presentations and videos, where speaking time helps you plan.
- Bios, descriptions and application forms that limit the number of words.
Tips and common mistakes
The count updates as you type, so you can trim a draft and watch the total fall. If your limit is in characters rather than words, use the character counter, which checks your text against the limits of X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google Ads.
Different programs count differently. Word processors, learning platforms and publishing systems may treat hyphens, numbers or symbols in their own way, so a total can differ by a few words. If a strict limit applies, leave yourself a small margin and check the rules of the place you are submitting to. Also remember that headings, footnotes and references may or may not count toward a limit.