Word Counter — Words, Characters & Reading Time
Live word, character, sentence and paragraph counter. Reading time, speaking time, most-common words, and platform limit chips for tweet, LinkedIn, Instagram, SMS and meta tags.
Platform limits
How your text fits common character limits.
About this tool
Word counters are deceptively simple. The hard part isn't counting — it's knowing what a "word" is. Hyphenated terms, contractions, em-dashes, multilingual punctuation and emoji all create edge cases. We follow the same convention as Microsoft Word and Google Docs: split on whitespace and count the non-empty tokens. That keeps results comparable across tools.
Beyond raw counts, this tool surfaces the things writers actually need. Reading time at 200 wpm is the silent-reading average of a literate adult, used by Medium and most publishers. Speaking time at 130 wpm matches a paced presentation — useful for keynote scripts, podcast intros and voice-over copy. The top-10 word list catches keyword stuffing, and the platform-limit chips tell you instantly whether your draft will fit a tweet, LinkedIn post, Instagram caption, SMS, meta title or meta description.
Everything runs in your browser. Your draft auto-saves to localStorage so a tab refresh doesn't lose work, and Clear wipes both the textarea and the saved copy.
How to use it (5 steps)
- Paste or type your text. Drop any text into the textarea. The counter updates in real time as you type — no submit button needed.
- Read the stats grid. Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs are shown side by side, plus reading time at 200 wpm and speaking time at 130 wpm.
- Check platform limits. The chip row shows how your text compares to common limits — tweet (280), LinkedIn post (3,000), Instagram caption (2,200), SMS (160), meta title (60), meta description (155).
- See top 10 words. The most-frequent words list helps you spot keyword stuffing or repetitive phrasing. Stopwords are filtered.
- Clear or copy when done. Use Clear to wipe everything (the saved copy too) or copy the text back out. All processing stays in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
+−How is reading time calculated?
We divide the total word count by 200, the average adult silent-reading speed in words per minute. Speaking time uses 130 wpm, the average for clear, paced speech (slightly slower than reading because of breaths and emphasis). For a 1,000-word article you'll see ~5 min reading and ~7.5 min speaking.
+−What's the difference between word count and character count?
Word count counts space-separated tokens. Character count is total Unicode characters (or code points). 'Hello world' is 2 words and 11 characters with spaces, 10 without. Twitter, SMS and meta tags care about characters; essays, blog posts and reports care about words.
+−Do hyphenated words count as one word or two?
One. We split on whitespace, so 'state-of-the-art' is one token. The same applies to slash-joined words like 'and/or' and apostrophes like "don't". This matches how Microsoft Word and Google Docs count words.
+−Can I save my work?
Your text is auto-saved to your browser's localStorage as you type, so closing the tab and re-opening it restores everything. Nothing leaves your device. Use the Clear button to wipe both the textarea and the saved copy.
+−Does this work offline?
Yes. Once the page is loaded, all counting happens in JavaScript in your browser. You can disconnect from Wi-Fi and the counter will keep updating as you type.
+−Is there an API for the word counter?
Not yet — but the algorithm is trivial: split on /\s+/ for words, count characters with String.length, split on /[.!?]+/ for sentences, and divide word count by 200 for reading minutes. We may expose a JSON endpoint if there's demand.
+−Is there a limit on input size?
Practically, browsers handle a few megabytes of text without lag. Counting is O(n) so even a 50,000-word document updates in under a second on a modern phone. If you paste a whole novel, expect a brief pause on first paste.
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