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Word Counter

Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines in any text, with an estimated reading time. Works with Unicode text.

Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines Characters with and without spaces, plus bytes Reading time estimate at 200 words per minute Unicode-aware counting
INPUT Text to count
0 chars0 words0 lines
Add the complete draft or sample whose structure should be measured. Example: Paste an article, essay, product description or any other text to analyze.
Ctrl / ⌘ + Enter
Word and document counts Statistics update from the text without changing your source.
About the tool

What Word Counter does

The word counter measures a piece of text and reports the number of words, characters (with and without spaces), bytes, lines, sentences and paragraphs, together with an estimated reading time. Paste an essay, an article, a product description or a social post and see at once whether it fits the limit you have to meet.

Counting follows simple, stated rules, described below, so you know exactly what a “word” or a “sentence” means here. For a closer look at characters only, use the Character Counter.

word counter showing words, characters, sentences and paragraphs for a pasted text
Totals for a pasted text.

How to use

  1. Paste your text. It can be a few words or a long document.
  2. Run the counter. All totals are calculated in one step.
  3. Compare with your limit. Check words for essays and articles, characters for titles, meta descriptions and posts.
  4. Edit and recount. Trim or extend the text and run the tool again.
Built for the task

Why use Word Counter?

Focused controls, predictable output, and a workflow designed around this exact transformation.

01

Many totals at once

Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, lines and bytes in a single run.

02

Clear counting rules

Words, sentences and paragraphs follow rules you can read on this page.

03

Unicode-aware

Letters from any alphabet count as words, and an emoji counts as one character.

04

Reading time included

An estimate at 200 words per minute helps you plan how long a text takes to read.

Useful answers

Questions about Word Counter

Practical details about input, output, privacy, limits, and the best way to use this tool.

01 How does the word counter decide what a word is?

A word is a run of letters or digits, optionally joined by an inner apostrophe or hyphen. So “well-known” and “don’t” are one word each, and “2024” counts as a word. Punctuation on its own, such as a dash with spaces around it, is not counted.

02 How are sentences counted?

The text is split at full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. A piece counts as a sentence only if it contains at least one letter or digit. Abbreviations such as “e.g.” or “Dr.” can therefore be counted as sentence ends, so treat the sentence total as an estimate.

03 How are paragraphs counted?

A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by at least one empty line. A line break without an empty line does not start a new paragraph.

04 What is the difference between characters and bytes?

Characters are the symbols a reader sees; an emoji or a letter with an accent counts as one. Bytes are the storage size in UTF-8, where non-Latin letters and emoji take two to four bytes each. Some systems limit bytes rather than characters.

05 How is reading time calculated?

Words are divided by 200 words per minute and rounded up, with a minimum of one minute for any non-empty text. Real reading speed varies with the reader and the subject.

06 Does it count words in other languages?

Yes. Letters from any script are treated as word characters. Languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese or Japanese, are not segmented into words by this tool.

07 Is there a word limit?

There is no fixed limit in the tool, but very large texts depend on your browser and may be slow to process.

What the word counter reports

  • Words — runs of letters or digits, with inner hyphens and apostrophes kept together.
  • Characters — everything you typed, including spaces and line breaks. An emoji counts as one character.
  • Characters without spaces — the same total with all whitespace removed.
  • Bytes — the UTF-8 size of the text.
  • Lines — the number of lines, split at line breaks.
  • Sentences and paragraphs — counted by the rules in the questions above.
  • Reading time — an estimate at 200 words per minute.

When to count words and when characters

Essays, articles and assignments usually have a word target. Titles, meta descriptions, ad copy, product names and social posts are normally limited by characters. Database fields and some APIs limit bytes, which matters for text in non-Latin scripts and for emoji. This tool shows all three, so one run covers every case.

Using word counts for writing

A count is a planning aid, not a quality measure. Use it to hit a required length, to compare drafts, or to see whether paragraphs are balanced. If a text feels repetitive, compare its total word count with the number of distinct words from the Unique Word Finder, or check how often a key phrase appears with the Keyword Density Checker.

Limits to keep in mind

Different programs count differently. Word processors, publishing platforms and plagiarism checkers may treat hyphenated words, numbers, URLs or abbreviations in their own way, so a total can differ by a few words. If an official limit applies, confirm the result in the system that will enforce it, and leave a small margin.

Related tools

Count characters in detail with the Character Counter, estimate how long a text takes to read with the Reading Time Calculator, list distinct words with the Unique Word Finder, or analyse keywords with the Keyword Density Checker.