Word Count Calculator
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in your text
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Words
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Characters
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Characters (no spaces)
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Reading Time
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Speaking Time
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Avg. Word Length
Top Keywords
How the Word Count Calculator Works
This tool analyzes your text in real time as you type or paste content. It counts words by splitting text on whitespace boundaries, counts sentences by detecting terminal punctuation marks (periods, exclamation points, question marks), and identifies paragraphs by looking for line breaks between blocks of text.
Metrics Explained
- Words: Sequences of characters separated by spaces or line breaks
- Characters: Total number of characters including spaces
- Characters (no spaces): Only non-space characters, useful for social media limits
- Sentences: Detected by terminal punctuation (. ! ?)
- Paragraphs: Blocks of text separated by blank lines
- Reading Time: Estimated at 238 words per minute based on research by Brysbaert (2019)
- Speaking Time: Estimated at 150 words per minute, the average conversational pace
- Avg. Word Length: Mean number of characters per word
Common Word & Character Limits
Social Media
- • X (Twitter) post: 280 characters
- • Instagram caption: 2,200 characters
- • Facebook post: 63,206 characters
- • LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters
- • YouTube description: 5,000 characters
Academic & Professional
- • College essay: 250-650 words
- • Blog post: 1,000-2,500 words
- • Short story: 1,000-7,500 words
- • Research abstract: 150-300 words
- • Cover letter: 250-400 words
SEO & Web Content
- • Meta title: 50-60 characters
- • Meta description: 150-160 characters
- • SEO-optimized article: 1,500-2,500 words
- • Product description: 100-300 words
- • Email subject line: 41-50 characters
Messaging & SMS
- • Standard SMS: 160 characters
- • Slack message: 40,000 characters
- • Discord message: 2,000 characters
- • WhatsApp message: 65,536 characters
- • iMessage: no hard limit
Tips for Writers
- Keep sentences under 20 words on average for better readability
- Aim for paragraphs of 3-5 sentences in web content
- Use shorter words when possible — average word length below 5 characters indicates clear, accessible writing
- For blog posts, 1,500-2,500 words tends to perform best in search engine rankings
- Break up long sections with headings every 200-300 words to improve scannability
References
The reading speed, speaking speed, and readability data used in this calculator are based on peer-reviewed research:
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
- Yuan, J., Liberman, M., & Cieri, C. (2006). Towards an integrated understanding of speaking rate in conversation. Proceedings of Interspeech.
- Nielsen, J. (1997). How Users Read on the Web. Nielsen Norman Group.
- Crossley, S. A., Greenfield, J., & McNamara, D. S. (2008). Assessing text readability using cognitively based indices. TESOL Quarterly, 42(3), 475-493.
Related Calculators
Note: Reading and speaking times are estimates based on average rates. Actual times vary depending on text complexity, reader experience, and language proficiency. Sentence detection uses punctuation marks and may not perfectly handle abbreviations (e.g., "Dr.", "U.S.A.") or other non-standard punctuation usage.
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