Word and Character Counter
Type or paste your writing to see live text statistics and estimated reading time. Your text stays in your browser.
- Free, no sign-up
- Text stays in your browser
- Live counts / no upload
- Words
- 0
- Characters
- 0
- Without whitespace
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Reading time
- 0 sec
Counts update as you type. Limit: 100,000 UTF-16 units (some emoji use multiple units). Text is not saved; copy it before leaving.
Step by step
How to count words and characters
Step 1: Paste your draft into the text box, or start typing. Use Try an example to see how the counter works before adding your own writing.
Step 2: Check the live totals for words, characters, sentences and paragraphs. Edit your draft in the same box to see how each change affects its length.
Step 3: Copy the finished text into your document or publishing platform. Save it elsewhere before closing this page; the counter does not keep a copy.
Choose the count that matches your task
Use word count for an essay brief, article draft or short description. Use character count when a form limits the length of a title, message or profile. Always check the destination platform too: its counting rules may differ from this counter.
Characters are counted as visible Unicode groups, so an emoji with a skin tone or a joined family emoji counts as one character. Spaces, tabs and line breaks are included in the character total. The second total excludes whitespace. Windows line endings are normalized to one line break.
How words, sentences and paragraphs are counted
The counter uses the browser's Unicode segmentation with English rules. Words include word-like letter and number segments; punctuation and standalone emoji do not add words. Contractions, hyphens and languages without spaces can behave differently from a simple split on spaces. Browser Unicode versions can also affect results.
Sentences use the same segmentation system and must contain a letter or number. Abbreviations and unfinished sentences can affect the total, so this is a writing aid rather than a grammar checker. Paragraphs are non-empty blocks separated by a blank line; a single line break stays within the same paragraph.
A short example and a reading-time estimate
Try the example: Write clearly. Make every word count. It contains 6 words and 2 sentences. Removing the final full stop changes the character total without changing the word count. Adding a blank line between the sentences creates a second paragraph.
Reading time assumes 200 words per minute and rounds up to whole seconds. A 400-word draft therefore shows 2 minutes. Technical language, reader familiarity and reading aloud can change the actual time. This estimate is not a promise of how long every reader will take.
Local processing and input limits
The counter does not upload or save the text you enter. Refreshing or leaving the page loses the draft, so copy it first. The editor accepts up to 100,000 UTF-16 units to keep repeated calculations manageable; some emoji occupy more than one unit even though they count as one visible character. Longer pasted text may be truncated by the editor's limit.