Tools / Word & Character Counter
Word and Character Counter
Paste or type your text to count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you write.
What this counter measures
Words are groups of characters separated by spaces or line breaks. Characters include letters, numbers, punctuation and spaces, while the second figure leaves spaces out. Sentences are counted by closing punctuation such as full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, and paragraphs by blank lines between blocks of text.
Common length targets
A short social post often works best under 280 characters. A meta description should stay near 155 characters so search engines do not cut it off. School essays are usually set by word count, and many blog posts that rank well for competitive topics run well over a thousand words, although quality matters more than length.
Reading time
Reading time assumes about 200 words per minute, a comfortable pace for most adults reading on screen. Technical or unfamiliar content takes longer, so treat the figure as a rough guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text saved anywhere?
No. The counting happens in your browser and your text never leaves your device.
Does it count words in other languages?
It splits on spaces, so it works for languages that separate words with spaces. Languages such as Chinese and Japanese are not counted word by word.
Are emojis counted as one character?
Some emojis are made of several code units, so the character count may be slightly higher than you expect.