How to use the word counter
Start typing or paste text into the box and the numbers update instantly. Alongside words and characters you get sentence and paragraph counts, an estimated reading time (based on an average silent reading speed of about 238 words per minute) and a speaking time (about 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for presentations and voice-overs).
The table below the box lists your ten most frequent words, skipping common filler like "the" and "and". It's an easy way to notice that you've used "really" eleven times in a cover letter.
How things are counted
- Words are runs of letters or digits. Contractions like "don't" and hyphenated words like "well-known" count as one word, which matches how Google Docs and Microsoft Word count.
- Characters are counted as Unicode characters, so an emoji or an accented letter counts as one, not two or four.
- Sentences end with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space or the end of the text. Abbreviations like "e.g." can occasionally inflate the count.
- Paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
Common length limits
| Where | Limit |
|---|---|
| Page title for search results | About 50–60 characters before it gets cut off |
| Meta description | About 150–160 characters |
| X (Twitter) post | 280 characters for standard accounts |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters |
| Git commit subject line | Around 50 characters by convention, 72 at most |
| SMS message | 160 GSM characters, or 70 if it contains emoji or other Unicode |
Tips for writers
Word count is a constraint, not a goal. When you need to cut, the keyword table is a good place to start: repeated words often point to repeated ideas. Look for sentences over 25 words and split them, and remove hedges like "quite", "somewhat" and "basically". For school or university work, remember that your institution may count footnotes, references or headings differently, so check their rules.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text saved or uploaded?
No. Counting happens in your browser and nothing is stored. If you close the tab, the text is gone, so keep a copy of anything important.
Why does my count differ slightly from Microsoft Word?
Tools treat edge cases such as URLs, numbers with commas, slashes and em dashes differently. Differences are usually under 1%.
Does it count Chinese or Japanese text?
Characters are counted correctly. Word counts for languages without spaces between words are not meaningful, so use the character count instead.