Word Counter

About the Word Counter

Word counts matter in more places than school essays. Blog posts and articles are planned by length, job applications and grant forms set strict limits, speeches must fit a time slot, and translators and freelance writers are often paid by the word. Knowing how long a text will take to read or to say aloud is just as useful.

This word counter counts the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in any text, and works out the average sentence length and word length, the reading time and speaking time, and your most used words. Paste in a draft and see all of it at once.

How to Use the Word Counter

Type or paste your text into the box and press Calculate. There is no need to remove formatting or headings.

How Words Are Counted

  word           =  a run of characters between spaces with a letter or number in it
  sentence       =  text ending in . ! or ?
  paragraph      =  text separated by a blank line
  reading time   =  words ÷ 238 a minute
  speaking time  =  words ÷ 130 a minute

Hyphenated words such as well-known count as one word; a dash or symbol on its own does not count. Numbers count as words.

Step-by-Step Example

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It barked twice! Then the fox ran away."

  Words:          9 + 3 + 5                =  17
  Sentences:      3
  Characters:     84, or 68 without spaces
  Words a sentence:  17 ÷ 3              =  5.67
  Reading time:   17 ÷ 238 minutes        =  about 4 seconds

A 1,000-word article.

  Reading:        1,000 ÷ 238             =  4 min 12 s
  Speaking:       1,000 ÷ 130             =  7 min 42 s

Reading and Speaking Speeds

The reading time uses 238 words a minute, the average for adults reading non-fiction silently found in a large review of reading studies. Fast readers manage 300 or more; technical or unfamiliar material is read more slowly. Speaking is slower: around 130 words a minute is a comfortable pace for a presentation or speech, while conversation can be faster. Use these figures as a guide to how long a talk or article will take.

Typical Lengths

Sentence Length and Readability

Average sentence length is one of the simplest guides to how easy a text is to read. Around 15 to 20 words a sentence reads comfortably for most adults; much longer sentences make readers work harder. Varying sentence length keeps writing lively. The readability score calculator combines sentence length with word length to give a grade level.

Most Used Words

Listing the most frequent words, ignoring short common words such as the, and and of, shows the main topics of a text at a glance. It is also a quick way to spot a word you have repeated too often, or to check that a key term appears in a web page.

Why Counts Differ Between Programs

Word processors, websites and this calculator can give slightly different counts for the same text. Differences come from how each treats numbers, dashes, hyphenated words, contractions, links, and text in headers, footnotes or tables. The differences are normally small. When a limit is set, check which tool the person setting it uses.

Word Counts for Academic Work

Schools and universities usually set word limits with a tolerance, often 10 percent either side, and state what is included. Titles, headings, tables, footnotes, reference lists and appendices are commonly excluded, while quotations usually count. Check the rules for each assignment before trimming or expanding, and count only the parts that are included. Writing far below a limit can be as much of a problem as going over it, because it suggests the topic has not been covered in enough depth.

Word Counts for the Web

For web pages, length should follow the reader's needs: long enough to answer the question fully, but no longer. Search engines do not reward length for its own sake, but thorough pages that cover a topic well tend to perform better than thin ones. Breaking long text into short paragraphs with clear headings makes it easier to scan on a phone.

Speeches and Presentations

To plan a speech, multiply the minutes available by about 130 to find the words to aim for: 650 words for five minutes, 1,300 for ten. Leave room for pauses, audience reactions and slides, and rehearse aloud with a timer, since everyone speaks at a slightly different pace.

Translation and Freelance Writing

Translators and many freelance writers charge by the word, usually counted in the source text for translation. Agree which count will be used before starting, since different tools can differ slightly.

Counting Without Distraction

Pasting a draft here gives a clean count without the formatting, comments and tracked changes of a word processor getting in the way.

Understanding Your Result

Words gives the number of words.

Characters gives the characters with and without spaces.

Sentences and paragraphs counts sentences and paragraphs.

Averages gives words per sentence and letters per word.

Reading and speaking time estimates the time to read or say the text.

Most used words lists the most frequent words.

When Should You Use This Calculator?

Writing an essay with a word limit.

Planning a blog post or article.

Timing a speech or presentation.

Filling in application forms.

Quoting for writing or translation work.

Common Mistakes

Counting a limit that includes or excludes titles incorrectly.

Forgetting footnotes and references.

Reading a speech faster than you will say it.

Assuming every program counts the same way.

Padding text to reach a word count.