This free word counter gives you an instant word count and character counter as you type. All analysis — including readability scores, keyword density, and reading time — runs entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your browser. No account needed, no file uploads, completely private.
How the Word Counter Works
This tool counts words by splitting your text on whitespace and counting each resulting token. Any sequence of non-whitespace characters separated by spaces, tabs, or line breaks counts as one word. A contraction like "don't" counts as one word. A hyphenated compound like "state-of-the-art" counts as one word. A bare number like "42,000" counts as one word. URLs count as one word regardless of length.
Character counts come in two forms. With spaces counts every character in your text — spaces, tabs, and newlines included — and this is the figure most platforms use when enforcing character limits. Without spaces strips all whitespace first and counts only the visible, non-whitespace characters.
Sentence detection splits on sentence-ending punctuation — periods, exclamation marks, and question marks — then counts segments that contain at least one non-whitespace character. An ellipsis is treated as one sentence boundary, not three. Paragraph counting is simpler: any block of text separated by at least one blank line registers as a separate paragraph.
Why counts differ between tools: Microsoft Word and Google Docs handle edge cases differently. Word can treat "well-known" as two words; Google Docs typically counts it as one. Some tools strip punctuation before counting; others do not. A discrepancy of five to ten words between this counter and your word processor almost always comes down to hyphenation handling and URL treatment.
Example: From Over-Limit Draft to Submission-Ready Article
A freelance writer receives a 1,500-word article assignment from a content marketing agency. She drafts the piece and pastes it here before submitting. The counter reads: 1,623 words, 9,841 characters with spaces, 31 sentences, 8 paragraphs. She is 123 words over the limit.
She opens the keyword density section and finds the phrase "content marketing" appearing 18 times in her 1,623-word draft — a density of 2.2%. Her client brief specified keeping the primary phrase under 2%. The bigram analysis also shows "digital marketing" at 11 occurrences and "marketing strategy" at 9. The topic cluster is dense throughout.
She starts editing: cutting redundant transitions, tightening wordy phrases ("in order to" becomes "to"; "due to the fact that" becomes "because"), and removing a tangential section on industry history. After two passes, the counter reads 1,497 words and "content marketing" sits at 1.7% density. She submits on time and within spec.
The same workflow applies across roles. Students paste essay drafts before submission to confirm they meet minimum and maximum word requirements. SEO writers keep primary keywords in the 0.5–2% density range to avoid over-optimization penalties. Journalists trim to column-inch word budgets before filing copy. Social media managers verify character counts against Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram limits before scheduling posts.
What Affects Your Word Count
A few elements shift word count in ways that can catch writers off guard:
- Hyphenated compounds count as one word — "state-of-the-art" = 1, not 4.
- Contractions count as one word — "don't," "it's," and "they're" each = 1.
- Numbers count as one word regardless of size or formatting — "100,000" = 1.
- URLs count as one word, no matter how long they are.
- Attached punctuation is part of its word token — a trailing comma or period does not count separately.
Character count is essential for platform publishing. Twitter limits posts to 280 characters. SMS messages break at 160 characters. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters but only surface the first 125 before a "more" tap is required. Knowing your exact character count before you post prevents a mid-sentence cutoff after the fact.
Reading time is estimated at 200 words per minute — the median silent reading speed for adult non-fiction readers, drawn from research by Brysbaert (2019) covering 190 studies and more than 17,000 participants. Fast readers average 300 WPM; readers working through technical or unfamiliar content average closer to 150 WPM. The 200 WPM default produces a conservative estimate that applies broadly across audiences.