Free Word Counter
Instantly analyze your text. Count words, characters, sentences, and estimate reading time in real-time.
Details
Time Estimates
Based on 250 wpm
Based on 150 wpm
A free word counter that also tells you how long the text takes to read
Paste or type into the editor and the counts update as you go: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, plus estimated reading and speaking time. Nothing is uploaded — the counting happens in your browser, so the text never leaves your machine.
Most people arrive here because something has a limit attached to it. The numbers below are the ones that usually matter.
The limits worth knowing
Different platforms cut text off at different points, and most of them count characters rather than words.
- X / Twitter: 280 characters on a free account.
- Meta descriptions: around 155–160 characters before Google truncates.
- Title tags: roughly 60 characters, though Google measures pixel width, not characters.
- UCAS personal statement: 4,000 characters or 47 lines, whichever comes first.
- Common App essay: 650 words, hard limit.
- LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters, but only about 200 show before "see more".
How the time estimates are calculated
Reading time uses 250 words per minute, the usual figure for silent reading of general prose. Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, which is roughly a measured presentation pace — conversational speech runs faster, closer to 190.
Treat both as rough. Dense technical writing reads slower than narrative at the same word count, and a script with pauses in it will always run longer than the arithmetic suggests.
What counts as a word
A word here is any run of characters separated by whitespace, which is the same rule Google Docs and Microsoft Word use. That means "state-of-the-art" counts as one word and "e mail" counts as two. Numbers and standalone symbols count as words too.
If your target is a hard institutional limit, check what their counter does with footnotes, headings and reference lists before trusting any external number, including this one.