How are words counted?

Runs of non-whitespace characters separated by whitespace are counted as words. Punctuation attached to a token (e.g. "hello,") still counts as one word.

Where is my text processed?

Counting happens entirely in your browser as you type. Nothing is uploaded, logged, or stored.

How is reading time estimated?

Reading time is calculated at 200 words per minute, the rough average for adult readers of English prose.

live · 200 wpm · multi-metric

Count words, characters & reading time

Q: What counts as a sentence?

Anything terminated by a period, exclamation mark, or question mark. Abbreviations like "Dr." can occasionally inflate the count.

Paste any text and see live counts of words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, lines, plus average reading time at 200 wpm.

Word Counter Workspace

Words

180 non-space chars

Characters

226

3 lines

Sentences

2 paragraphs

Reading time

14 sec

@ 200 wpm

input · text

output · word & character stats

Words46Characters226 (180 no spaces)Sentences2Paragraphs2Lines3Reading time14 sec@ 200 wpmaverage adult

Quick Start

How to count words and characters

This tool gives you the canonical six metrics writers and developers care about — words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, lines, and reading time.

01
Paste your text
Drop blog drafts, essays, code comments, or any prose into the input panel. Numbers update live.
Tokenisation is Unicode-aware via \p{L}\p{N} property classes — so accented letters, ideographs, and emoji code points all count correctly.
any textUTF-8Unicodecode pointslive
input · texttext · UTF-8
```
Hello world! This is a sample text.
```
loaded · UTF-8UTF-8 · ready
02
Read the live stats
Words, characters (with/without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, lines — all updated as you type.
Live re-counts run on every keystroke through a memoised reducer, so even multi-megabyte inputs stay smooth in the editor.
livememoisedoptionssnappy
metrics · options6 · live
```
Words: 7
Chars: 36
```
options applied · livelive
03
Reading time @ 200 wpm
Standard adult silent-reading speed. Useful for blog "X min read" badges.
Output preserves the original line endings (\n vs \r\n) and trailing whitespace is reported separately so you can spot diff-only changes.
200 wpmline endingswhitespacediff-cleanreproducible
reading · countedminutes · ready
```
750 words → 4 min
```
counted · livecounted
04
Copy or download stats
Get a formatted summary for editors, PRs, or analytics.
Copy writes via the Async Clipboard API; downloads ship as text/plain; charset=utf-8 — nothing leaves your tab.
copydownloadclipboardtext/plainblob
export · copiedready · done
```
✓ Stats copied
```
shipped · ready to shipsuccess

Pro tips

Text-processing fundamentals worth knowing

Tokenise with Unicode classes

Use \p{L}\p{N} with the u flag so accents, ideographs, and emoji count properly.

Normalise line endings

Convert \r\n to \n before diffing or hashing — Windows-vs-Unix endings produce phantom changes.

Mind invisible characters

Zero-width joiners, BOMs, and non-breaking spaces look identical to ASCII space. Strip them before comparison or storage.

Stream don’t slurp

For multi-megabyte text, iterate line-by-line rather than loading everything to memory — keeps the tab responsive.

Choose collation deliberately

Default JS sort is code-point order, not human alphabetical. Use Intl.Collator for locale-aware sorting.

Re-run after normalisation

NFC vs NFD changes byte length but not visible glyphs. String.prototype.normalize() before counts and comparisons.

Use Cases

When to count words

Anywhere length matters.

Blog drafts

Hit your word target for SEO or editorial limits. Tokenisation uses Unicode property classes (\p{L}, \p{N}) with the u flag so accents, ideographs, and emoji code points all count correctly. Surrogate-pair-aware counts mean 🚀 weighs 1, not 2.

Unicode-correct

Tweets & social

Twitter / X = 280 chars. Mastodon = 500. Check before posting. Result updates as you type — paste and watch totals settle in milliseconds even on multi-megabyte inputs. Heavy work runs through a memoised reducer so the editor never janks.

diff-clean

Academic papers

Most journals enforce word limits — verify before submitting. Output normalises line endings to LF for clean diffs across platforms. Windows-vs-Unix CRLF mismatches disappear, which keeps git blame honest and review comments focused on real changes.

instant counts

Reading time badges

The classic "X min read" badge on articles.

platform-aware

Newsletter copy

Cap your weekly digest at a target length. All processing runs client-side — paste sensitive or pre-publish copy without it leaving the tab. The clipboard API writes UTF-8 text/plain so it survives transit to any editor or CMS.

code-point-accurate

Code comments

Confirm a docstring or PR description isn't bloated. Same input plus same options always produces identical output, so the tool is safe to embed in CI scripts or doc-generation pipelines without race conditions.

lossless

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a word?

Anything separated by whitespace. Punctuation attached to a word still counts as part of that word.

What about characters with and without spaces?

Both shown. Without-spaces is useful for tweet / SMS limits where spaces do count differently in some encodings.

How is reading time computed?

Words divided by 200 (average adult silent-reading speed). Under 1 minute renders in seconds.

Is anything sent to a server?

No. All counting runs locally.

What counts as a sentence?

Anything ending in . ! ? followed by whitespace or end-of-text.

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