How are words and characters counted?

Words are found the way your browser's text segmentation does it, so Chinese and Japanese text is split into words too, contractions like don't and hyphenated words like well-known count as one word each, and numbers count as words. Characters count what you see, so an emoji or an accented letter is one character, not two.

How is reading time calculated?

Reading time assumes about 238 words per minute (typical adult silent reading) and speaking time about 150 words per minute (a comfortable talking pace). They are estimates.

Are the character limits exact?

They are the published numbers, used as a guide. X counts every link as 23 characters and weighs some scripts double. Google shortens titles and descriptions by pixel width, not character count, so 60 and 160 are rules of thumb. SMS splits into several messages once it passes 160 characters, or 70 if it contains non-Latin characters.

What does 'Most used words' show?

The ten most frequent words of three letters or more, with their share of the whole text. Common English words such as the, and and of are ignored by default — switch that off to include them. The ignore-list is English only.

Is my text saved or uploaded?

No. It is counted in your browser and not stored anywhere — closing the tab clears it.

Utility

Word & Character Counter

Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, estimate reading time and check text against limits for X, SMS and SEO. Your text stays in your browser.

Your text

Words

Characters

Without spaces

Sentences

Paragraphs

Lines

0 sec

Reading time

0 sec

Speaking time

Check against a limit

How it works

1
Type or paste your text.
2
Read the live counts — words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading and speaking time.
3
Optionally pick a limit (X post, SMS, SEO title or description…) to see how many characters are left, and check your most-used words.

Word & Character Counter — frequently asked questions

How are words and characters counted?: Words are found the way your browser's text segmentation does it, so Chinese and Japanese text is split into words too, contractions like don't and hyphenated words like well-known count as one word each, and numbers count as words. Characters count what you see, so an emoji or an accented letter is one character, not two.
How is reading time calculated?: Reading time assumes about 238 words per minute (typical adult silent reading) and speaking time about 150 words per minute (a comfortable talking pace). They are estimates.
Are the character limits exact?: They are the published numbers, used as a guide. X counts every link as 23 characters and weighs some scripts double. Google shortens titles and descriptions by pixel width, not character count, so 60 and 160 are rules of thumb. SMS splits into several messages once it passes 160 characters, or 70 if it contains non-Latin characters.
What does 'Most used words' show?: The ten most frequent words of three letters or more, with their share of the whole text. Common English words such as the, and and of are ignored by default — switch that off to include them. The ignore-list is English only.
Is my text saved or uploaded?: No. It is counted in your browser and not stored anywhere — closing the tab clears it.