Word Counter

What is the Word Counter?

The Word Counter is a free tool that counts the words in any text as you type or paste it. It also shows characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading and speaking time, the longest sentence, a Flesch Reading Ease score and the words you use most. Nothing is uploaded; it all runs in your browser.

How to use the Word Counter

1. Type in the box, or paste text from a document, an email or a web page.
2. Read the word count at the top. It updates with every keystroke.
3. Check the stats below it: characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and reading ease.
4. Scan the most used words to catch one you lean on too often.

How does a word counter count words?

It counts runs of letters and numbers separated by spaces or punctuation. A hyphenated word like state-of-the-art and a contraction like don't count as one word each, which matches how Microsoft Word and Google Docs count. Numbers count as words; standalone symbols and emoji do not.

That is why two counters can disagree by a few words on the same text: some split on hyphens, some count a dash surrounded by spaces as a word. For a word limit set by a teacher, an editor or a form, the count here will match Word's to within a word or two.

How long should a blog post be for SEO?

There is no length Google rewards for its own sake. The useful benchmark is the pages already ranking for your keyword: if the top results run 1,500 words, a 400 word page usually cannot cover the topic as well. Measure them, then aim a little above the median rather than doubling it. The On-Page SEO Checker shows the rest of what a ranking page needs.

For AI answer engines, length matters less than structure. ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity quote passages, not pages, so a page with a 50 word direct answer under each heading gets cited more than a longer page that buries the answer in paragraph six. The Readability Checker shows whether those answers are easy to lift.

How is reading time calculated?

Reading time is the word count divided by 238 words a minute, the average silent reading speed for non-fiction measured across 190 studies (Brysbaert, 2019). Speaking time uses 150 words a minute, a steady presentation pace. Use speaking time for a script, a talk or a video voiceover.

How do I count the words in a PDF or an image?

Copy the text out of the PDF and paste it here. In most PDF readers, Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on Mac) selects every word on the page and Ctrl+C copies it. Strip out the page numbers, running headers and footnote markers that come along with the copy, because each of them counts as a word.

A scanned PDF or a photo has no text to copy, only a picture of text, so it needs optical character recognition (OCR) first. Uploading the file to Google Drive and choosing Open with, then Google Docs, converts it to editable text. On a phone, Live Text on iPhone and Google Lens on Android let you select and copy the words in a photo. OCR misreads some characters, so skim the result before you trust the count.

What counts toward an essay word limit?

Usually the body text, from the first sentence of the introduction to the last sentence of the conclusion. Many universities leave out the title, the reference list and any appendices, while in-text citations and quotations normally count. Footnotes vary the most: some departments include them and some do not. The assignment brief or the style guide is the only reliable answer, so check it before you trim.

To count only the part that counts, paste only that part. Some courses allow 10% over or under the limit, but that is a local rule, not a standard, and many online application forms stop accepting text at the exact number.

How long is a college essay, a cover letter or an abstract?

The Common App personal essay must be between 250 and 650 words. A cover letter usually fits on one page, which is roughly 250 to 400 words. A journal abstract is commonly 150 to 250 words, but each journal sets its own figure in its author guidelines.

For anything with a hard limit, write first and cut second. Paste the draft, note the count, and remove whole sentences that repeat a point before you shave single words. The longest sentence figure shows where the easiest cuts usually are.

Does the word counter work for other languages?

Yes, for languages that put spaces between words and write each letter as a single character, such as Spanish, French, German, Russian and Greek. A word is any run of letters or digits in any alphabet, so accented letters and non-Latin scripts count correctly.

Chinese, Japanese and Thai are written without spaces, so a whole run of characters up to the next space or punctuation mark counts as one word, and the word count stops meaning much. Use the Character Counter for those, since limits in those languages are usually set in characters anyway. The reading ease score is an English formula, so ignore it for other languages.