Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with reading and speaking time.
Set a target to track progress as you write.
Runs entirely in your browser. Your data isn't uploaded — this page makes no network request with anything you type or upload, which you can verify in your browser's network tab. How this works.
What is the Word Counter?
A word counter tells you how long a piece of writing really is — the number of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs — while you are still writing it. Paste an essay, a blog post, a cover letter or a speech, or type straight into the box, and every figure updates as you go, along with how long the text takes to read silently and to say out loud.
It is built for the limits people actually work to: a 500-word essay, a 1,500-word article brief, a two-minute talk. Set a word goal and a progress bar shows how far you have to go. The keyword density list shows which words you lean on most, which helps with both repetitive writing and SEO. Everything is counted inside your browser, so drafts, coursework and unpublished work are never uploaded anywhere.
How to use it
- Type or paste your text into the editor, or open a .txt or .md file.
- Read the live totals: words, characters, sentences and paragraphs.
- Check the reading and speaking time if the text is for a page or a talk.
- Optionally set a word goal to track progress as you write.
- Press Copy to put a plain-text summary of every statistic on your clipboard.
Example
Two short paragraphs from a cover-letter guide, counted.
Most hiring managers spend less than a minute on a cover letter. That is not a reason to skip it; it is a reason to make every sentence count. Start with the role, not yourself. Name the position, say where you saw it, and give one specific reason the work appeals to you.
Words: 53 Characters: 273 (220 without spaces) Sentences: 4 Paragraphs: 2 Reading time: 13 s Speaking time: 21 s Top keyword: reason — 3 (5.7%)
Features
- Counts update as you type, even on book-length text
- Words counted sensibly: “don’t”, “well-known”, “3.14” and “e.g.” are one word each
- Chinese and Japanese characters counted one word each; emoji never count as words
- Characters counted as you see them, so “👍🏽” is one character
- Sentence count that is not fooled by “Dr.”, “e.g.” or decimals
- Reading time at 238 words a minute and speaking time at 150
- Keyword density with an option to ignore common words
- Word goal with a progress bar
- Nothing is uploaded — your text stays in your browser