Word Counter — Count Words, Characters, Sentences & Reading Time
This free word counter tool gives you a full breakdown of any text you paste or type. It counts your words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, and paragraphs instantly as you type. It also shows you how long the text would take to read out loud or silently. This is useful for writers, bloggers, students, and anyone who needs to hit a specific word count for an assignment, social media post, or article. No button to click. The counts update live as you type or paste your text.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I count words in a document?
Select all the text in your document, copy it, then paste it into this tool. The count updates instantly. In Microsoft Word you can also see the word count in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
How many words per minute does the average person read?
The average adult reads about 200 to 250 words per minute. This tool uses 225 words per minute as its estimate. Fast readers can reach 300 or more, while complex technical text may slow reading to around 150 words per minute.
How long should a blog post be for SEO?
Most SEO guides recommend between 1,000 and 2,500 words for a blog post that aims to rank in search results. Longer posts tend to cover a topic more thoroughly, which search engines reward. Quality and relevance still matter more than length alone.
What is the difference between characters with and without spaces?
Characters with spaces counts every character including the blank spaces between words. Characters without spaces counts only letters, numbers, and punctuation. Publishers and translators often use the without-spaces count for billing purposes.
How many words is a standard page?
A standard double-spaced page in a 12pt font is roughly 250 words. A single-spaced page is about 500 words. A typical paperback book page is around 250 to 300 words.
What is a good word count for an email newsletter?
Most email marketing studies suggest 200 to 500 words for newsletters. Shorter emails get read more completely; longer emails work if the content is genuinely valuable and subscribers expect depth. Subject lines perform best under 50 characters. Preheader text should be 85 to 100 characters so it displays fully in most email clients.
How many words is a typical tweet or social media post?
Twitter/X posts are capped at 280 characters, which is typically 40 to 60 words. Facebook posts perform best at around 40 to 80 words. LinkedIn posts get the most engagement at 150 to 300 words. Instagram captions can be up to 2,200 characters but the first 125 are shown before the "more" cut-off.
How do I meet a word count minimum for school or work?
Paste your current draft here to see where you stand. To expand content legitimately: add more supporting examples, define key terms, include data or citations, or add a counterargument section. Avoid padding with filler phrases — instructors and editors spot repeated ideas quickly. Focus on depth over length.
How It Works
Words are counted by splitting text on whitespace using a regex, giving a result consistent with most word processors. Sentences are detected by counting terminal punctuation (. ! ?). Paragraphs count blocks of text separated by blank lines. Reading time uses 225 words per minute, the widely cited adult average for non-fiction.
Content Length Benchmarks
Blog posts: 1,000–2,500 words for SEO. Short story: 1,000–7,500 words. Novel: 70,000–100,000 words. Academic abstract: 150–250 words. Cover letter: 250–400 words. LinkedIn post: 150–300 words. Email newsletter: 200–500 words. Understanding your target range before writing saves significant editing time.
Characters vs Words
Publishers and translators often bill by character count (without spaces) rather than word count. This is because word length varies significantly between languages — a German technical word can translate to three English words. If you submit content for professional translation, always provide the character count as well.
When to Use This
Use when checking blog post length before publishing, verifying you meet a minimum word count for academic submissions, estimating podcast or presentation speaking time, checking social media posts against platform limits, or confirming an article meets a client's word count requirement before delivery.
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