How does word counting work?

Words are counted by splitting text at whitespace boundaries (spaces, tabs, line breaks) and counting non-empty segments. Hyphenated words like "twenty-one" count as one word. Contractions like "don't" count as one word. Numbers (123) count as words. URLs and email addresses count as single words. Punctuation is ignored when attached to words ("hello," = 1 word).

What is the difference between characters and characters without spaces?

"Characters" counts everything: letters, numbers, punctuation, and spaces. "Characters without spaces" excludes all whitespace (spaces, tabs, line breaks). For "Hello World!", characters = 12 (including space), characters without spaces = 11. This metric is useful for character limits on platforms that exclude spaces (e.g., Twitter for some languages).

How is reading time calculated?

Reading time assumes 200 words per minute (WPM), the average silent reading speed for adults in English. For a 1000-word article, reading time is 1000 / 200 = 5 minutes. This is an estimate; actual reading speed varies by text complexity, reader proficiency, and language. Technical content averages 150-175 WPM; simple content can reach 250+ WPM.

How is speaking time calculated?

Speaking time assumes 130 words per minute, the average conversational speaking pace. For a 1000-word script, speaking time is 1000 / 130 ≈ 7.7 minutes. Professional presentations average 120-150 WPM. Podcasters and audiobook narrators often target 150-160 WPM for clarity. Adjust estimates based on your speaking style and content complexity.

What counts as a sentence?

Sentences are counted by detecting terminal punctuation: periods (.), exclamation marks (!), and question marks (?). Each occurrence increments the sentence count. Abbreviations (Dr., U.S.) may cause inaccuracies. Ellipses (...) count as sentence endings. For most use cases, the count is accurate within 5-10% for standard prose.

What counts as a paragraph?

Paragraphs are counted by detecting double line breaks (\n\n) or single line breaks depending on formatting. A blank line typically separates paragraphs. Single-line text counts as 1 paragraph. List items separated by single line breaks may count as separate paragraphs. For accurate counts, ensure your text uses standard paragraph spacing (blank lines between paragraphs).

Word Counter & Character Counter - Free Online Tool

How to Count Words and Characters

Paste or type text into the input area
View automatic statistics: words, characters, sentences, paragraphs
Check reading time (200 WPM) and speaking time (130 WPM)
Use metrics for content planning and optimization

Word Counter Features

Word Count: Total word count for essays, articles, and documents
Character Count: Characters with and without spaces
Sentence & Paragraph Count: Track document structure
Reading Time: Estimated time at 200 words per minute
Speaking Time: Estimated time at 130 words per minute
Line Count: Number of lines in multi-line text

How Reading Time is Calculated

Reading time uses the average silent reading speed of 200-250 words per minute for adults. We use 200 WPM as a conservative estimate. A 1000-word article takes approximately 5 minutes to read.

Speaking time is calculated at 130-150 words per minute, which is the typical pace for presentations and speeches. This is slower than reading because speaking requires pauses for breath, emphasis, and audience comprehension.

Use cases: Estimating blog post reading time for readers, planning speech duration for presentations, meeting word count requirements for essays and assignments, optimizing social media posts for character limits (Twitter 280, LinkedIn 3000), and ensuring meta descriptions stay under 160 characters for SEO.

Privacy & Security

All counting happens locally in your browser. Your text is never uploaded to servers, stored, or logged. The analysis uses JavaScript, keeping your content completely private.