Online Word Counter
Type or paste text to see word count and character count update immediately. The primary metrics appear before the text area so you can check a limit while editing. Use the counters as estimates when a platform has its own counting rules.
Character Counter and Character Count
Characters with spaces use JavaScript string length, which counts UTF-16 code units. The no-spaces metric removes all whitespace, including tabs and line breaks. Emoji and combining sequences can therefore differ from visual character counts.
Sentence, Paragraph and Reading-Time Statistics
Sentences are estimated from ending punctuation, paragraphs from blank-line-separated blocks, and reading time from 200 words per minute. These are heuristics, not a prediction of an individual reader’s pace or a linguistic parser.
Keyword Density and Text Analysis
The density panel shows frequent normalized terms as a percentage of the whitespace-based word count. Short terms and non-ASCII punctuation affect this simple analysis. Use it to spot repetition, not to target a keyword-density score.
How Word Counting Works
Words are counted by splitting trimmed text on whitespace. Hyphenated words and languages without spaces may differ from a word processor’s count. When an assignment or submission system enforces a limit, its rules take precedence.
More examples and technical details
How Word and Character Counting Works
Counting words sounds trivial until you try to write the rule down. Most counters, including the one above, split your text on whitespace and count the chunks that are left. That means a run of spaces, tabs, and newlines collapses into a single boundary, so "two words" with three spaces still counts as two. Punctuation usually rides along with the word it touches, so "well-being" is one word and "didn't" is one word, not two.
This is exactly why the same paragraph can produce different numbers in different tools. Some counters treat a hyphen as a separator and report "well-being" as two. Some count a standalone emoji or a lone dash as a word because it survives the whitespace split. Character counts diverge for a simpler reason: whether trailing spaces and line breaks are included. This tool gives you both a with-spaces and a without-spaces figure so you always know which one you are looking at.
Where Character Count Actually Matters
Plenty of places on the internet count your characters for you and then cut you off. Knowing the ceiling before you paste saves you from writing a headline that Google quietly chops in half. Here are the limits people bump into most often.
| Where | Limit | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter / X post | 280 chars | The whole post, links included, though links count as a fixed length. |
| SMS text message | 160 chars | Go one over and it splits into two billed segments. |
| Google meta title | ~60 chars | Google truncates the tag around 600 pixels, roughly 60 characters. |
| Google meta description | ~155 chars | Measured in pixels near 920px, so wide letters eat the budget faster. |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 chars | Only the first 125 or so show before the More link. |
Notice that Google measures titles and descriptions in pixels, not characters. A title full of narrow letters like i and l fits more text than one packed with wide W and M shapes, which is why the character counts are always given as approximate. Aim for roughly 60 characters on a title and 155 on a description and you will stay inside the pixel budget most of the time.
Reading Time and Keyword Density
Reading time is a quick estimate, not a promise. The usual math divides your word count by an average adult reading speed of 200 to 250 words per minute. A 1,000 word article lands around four to five minutes. It is a handy signal for readers deciding whether to commit, and many blogs show it at the top of a post for exactly that reason.
Keyword density is the share of your text made up of a single term. There was a time when repeating a phrase pushed a page up the rankings, but that era is long gone. Modern search engines read for meaning, and text that hammers the same keyword reads as spam to both the algorithm and the human. Write naturally, let the term appear where it fits, and use a counter to sanity-check that no phrase is wildly overrepresented rather than to hit a magic percentage.
One last thing worth repeating: every count here happens in your browser. Your text is never uploaded, so you can safely paste an unpublished draft, a client contract, or anything else private and the numbers still work with the tab offline.
Need something else? Explore every text tool in one place, all free and client-side.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count words online?
Paste text and read the Words metric, which updates as you edit.
Does the tool count characters with and without spaces?
Yes. The second metric excludes whitespace. Counts use UTF-16 code units, so some emoji count as more than one.
How is reading time calculated?
The estimate uses 200 words per minute and is displayed as minutes and seconds.
Can I check keyword density?
Yes. The panel lists frequent normalized terms and their share of the word count.
Is my text uploaded or stored?
No. Input is processed in this browser tab and is not uploaded by the tool. Copy and download are actions you control; ordinary page analytics do not receive tool input.