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Word counter

Count the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in a piece of writing as you type, with an estimate of how long it takes to read aloud or in your head.

Your writing

Your text stays in this tab. The work is done by JavaScript in your browser. None of it is uploaded, logged or saved, and the tool keeps working with the network off.

Reading speed

Reading speed

The average is 238 words a minute, from a meta-analysis of 190 reading studies. Real rates run from about 175 to 300, so treat the time as a range rather than a measurement.

Words

0

Start typing and the counts follow.

Characters
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Characters without spaces
0
Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Reading time
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Read aloud
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It counts in your browser

Nothing is uploaded. The counting is JavaScript running on this page, so the draft you paste in stays in the tab, which matters more for a word counter than for most tools, because what people put into one is usually something unfinished they have not shown anyone.

What counts as a word

Anything separated by whitespace. That makes state-of-the-art one word and don’t one word, which is what Word and Google Docs report, and if you are writing to a limit somebody set, theirs is the number that counts.

The browser can do something cleverer. Its Unicode word segmentation would call “state-of-the-art” four words, which is linguistically defensible and useless for the question actually being asked. So the simple rule wins here.

The exception is languages written without spaces. Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean put no gaps between words, so splitting on spaces reports a whole paragraph as one word. No space-based counter can do better, so the tool says so when it sees those scripts rather than reporting “1” with a straight face.

Sentences, and the abbreviation problem

Sentences use the browser’s Unicode segmentation rather than a search for full stops, which is a real improvement: it knows that the dot in 3.14 does not end a sentence, and that a closing quotation mark can come after one.

It still breaks after Mr., etc. and e.g., because distinguishing an abbreviation from the end of a sentence needs a list of abbreviations. Text full of them will come out with more sentences than it has. Nothing here can fix that, so it is worth knowing rather than being surprised by.

Reading time is a range, not a measurement

The default of 238 words a minute comes from Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies of English silent reading. It is notably slower than the 300 wpm that circulates online, and individual rates in those studies span roughly 175 to 300.

Reading aloud is slower again, about 183 words a minute, which is why it is a separate figure. For a talk, start from that and expect to go slower: pauses, questions and breathing are not in the number.

The times are rounded to the minute on purpose. The underlying rate varies by a factor of nearly two between readers, so a figure like “4 min 12 s” would be precision the estimate does not have.

Questions

Is my writing sent anywhere?
No. The counting runs in JavaScript in your browser and nothing is uploaded, logged or stored. Load the page, disconnect the network, and it keeps working, which is the point, because the text people paste into a word counter is usually a draft they have not shown anyone yet.
How is a word counted?
By splitting on whitespace, which is what Word and Google Docs do. So 'state-of-the-art' is one word and so is "don't", and a run of several spaces counts once. If you are checking against a limit set by someone using a word processor, this is the figure they will see.
Why does my word processor give a slightly different number?
Usually because of what is included rather than how words are counted. Word processors may or may not count footnotes, headers, captions and text boxes, and the setting is easy to miss. For the same plain text pasted in, the counts should agree.
How accurate is the reading time?
It is an estimate of a range, not a measurement. The average of 238 words a minute comes from a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies of English silent reading, and individual rates in those studies run from roughly 175 to 300. Dense or technical material is slower still. The speed setting lets you see the spread.
Why is reading aloud slower than reading silently?
Because speech has a physical speed limit and silent reading does not. The same meta-analysis puts reading aloud at about 183 words a minute against 238 silently. For a talk, that figure is a better starting point than the silent one, and most presenters go slower still.
How are sentences counted?
With the browser's own Unicode sentence segmentation, which is considerably better than splitting on full stops. It knows the dot in 3.14 does not end a sentence. It still breaks after abbreviations like 'Mr.' or 'etc.', because telling those apart needs a dictionary of them. Text with many abbreviations will read as having more sentences than it does.
What counts as a paragraph?
Every non-empty line, which is how a word processor counts them: each time you press Enter you start a new paragraph. Blank lines between paragraphs are not counted as paragraphs themselves, so text with a blank line between each block gives the number you would expect.
Does it work for Chinese or Japanese?
The character count does; the word count does not, and the tool says so when it sees those scripts. Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean are not written with spaces between words, so a space-based count reports a whole passage as one word. Use the character count for those languages.

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