Word and character counter

Replace the sample with your own text. Counts update as you type, and the text never leaves your browser.

Words

Characters: 460
Without spaces: 372
Sentences: 6
Paragraphs: 3
Words per sentence: 14.5
Longest sentence: 33 words
Reading time (silent): 22 s
Reading aloud: 29 s
As a speech: 37 s

How the counts work

Every figure is counted directly from the text; nothing is estimated except the times.

Words are runs of characters separated by spaces, line breaks or em dashes that contain at least one letter or digit. Punctuation at the start or end of a word is ignored, so "Hello, counts as one word. Contractions (don't) and hyphenated compounds (well-known) count as one. Numbers count as words, as they do in word processors.
Characters are counted as Unicode code points, so an accented letter or most emoji count as one. The "without spaces" figure removes spaces, tabs and line breaks.
Paragraphs are non-empty lines. Text pasted from most sources has one line break per paragraph; blank lines between paragraphs are ignored rather than counted.
Sentences end at ., ?, ! or … followed by a space, with exceptions for common abbreviations and initials. A line with no closing punctuation, such as a heading or a list item, is one sentence.

Writing to a word count? The writing sprint timer uses this same counting routine, but shows only the words you add during a timed session, with your pace and a daily log.

Reading and speaking times

The times divide the word count by a rate in words per minute. Silent reading uses 238 words per minute and reading aloud 183, the adult averages from Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of reading speed. The reading time calculator explains those figures and lets you use your own speed.

Speaking time uses the pace you pick above. There is no single research figure for "speech rate" that fits every speaker and occasion, so three are offered: 120 words per minute for a slow, deliberate delivery, 140 for a comfortable presentation pace, and 160 for a brisk, conversational style. If you have recorded yourself rehearsing, divide the words by the minutes it took and you have your own figure.

A worked example

A 750-word opinion piece takes 750 ÷ 238 = 3.2 minutes to read silently, a little over three minutes. Delivered as a talk at 140 words per minute, the same text runs 750 ÷ 140 = 5.4 minutes, about 5 min 20 s.

That difference catches out many speakers. If you have a strict five-minute slot, aim for about 700 words at 140 words per minute, and closer to 600 if you tend to pause for effect or take questions part-way through. Cutting a draft to fit is easier with the live count above: paste it in and trim until the speech time fits.

How many words fit in a speech

Running the speaking-time sum backwards gives the word budget for a time slot. These are the word counts at each of the three paces.

Speech length	120 wpm	140 wpm	160 wpm
1 min	120	140	160
2 min	240	280	320
3 min	360	420	480
5 min	600	700	800
7 min	840	980	1,120
10 min	1,200	1,400	1,600
15 min	1,800	2,100	2,400
20 min	2,400	2,800	3,200
30 min	3,600	4,200	4,800

Common word and character limits

Many limits you meet are set in characters rather than words, and in characters with spaces. A rough conversion for English prose is five to six characters per word including the space, so 1,000 characters is somewhere around 160 to 200 words. That ratio moves with your vocabulary: technical writing with long words gets fewer words into the same character limit. When the limit matters, paste the final text here and check the exact figure rather than converting.

Word limits in schools and competitions are usually counted the way a word processor counts, which matches this tool for ordinary prose. If a limit is strict, check whether titles, headings, footnotes and references are included; rules vary, and the counter simply counts whatever you paste.

Where the counts can differ

Counts for the same text vary slightly between tools, and none of them is wrong: they make different choices about edge cases. Words joined by an en dash or a slash (and/or) count as one here. URLs and email addresses count as one word each. Text in languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese, Japanese or Thai, cannot be counted this way at all; for those, the character count is the meaningful figure.

Common questions

How many words is a 5-minute speech?

Roughly 600 to 800 words. At a comfortable presentation pace of about 140 words per minute, five minutes is 700 words; a slower, more deliberate delivery at 120 words per minute fits 600, and a brisk one at 160 fits 800. Leave some slack: pauses for laughter, questions or slides all eat into the time.

Does this count words the same way Microsoft Word or Google Docs does?

Very nearly, and usually exactly for ordinary prose. All three count runs of characters separated by spaces. Differences show up at the edges: this counter splits words joined by an em dash (one—two is two words), ignores tokens made only of punctuation, and counts a hyphenated compound as one word. Word processors differ from each other on the same cases, so a gap of a word or two on a long document is normal.

Are characters counted with or without spaces?

Both are shown. Characters with spaces counts every character including spaces and line breaks, which is what most social media limits and form fields use. Characters without spaces leaves out all whitespace. Emoji and accented letters count as one character each here.

How are sentences counted?

A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a space or the end of a line. Common abbreviations such as Dr., Mr., e.g. and single initials like the J. in J. R. R. Tolkien do not end a sentence. A line with no closing punctuation, such as a heading, counts as one sentence. Unusual abbreviations can still cause a miscount, so treat the sentence figure as very close rather than exact.

Is my text stored or sent anywhere?

No. The counting is done by JavaScript in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent to a server, saved, or kept after you close the page. You can check this by opening your browser's network tools while you type: no requests are made.