Free Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time — live, as you type. Nothing is uploaded; the counter runs entirely in your browser and works offline.
How this word counter works
What counts as a word?
Any run of non-whitespace characters separated by spaces, line breaks or tabs counts as one word — the same rule most word processors use. Hyphenated words like “long-term” count as a single word; “don’t” also counts as one.
How is reading time calculated?
Reading time assumes an average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute. At that speed, 500 words take about 2 minutes 30 seconds to read. Actual speed varies from roughly 150 to 250 wpm depending on the reader and the difficulty of the text.
Is my text private?
Completely. This is a client-side tool: your text never leaves your browser, nothing is stored on any server, and the page even works with no internet connection once it has loaded.
When is this useful?
Common uses: essay and article word limits, social media character limits (the “chars (no spaces)” figure is what most platforms count), meta descriptions around 150–160 characters, and estimating speech length at roughly 130 spoken words per minute.