Count words, characters and sentences with a free word counter. Check 800 words at 200 WPM for 4.0 min, private offline, no signup.
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Quick answer: Word Counter — Count words, characters & reading time Free, no signup, runs in your browser. See below for the interactive tool, 4-step guide and FAQs.
≈ 0 min to read · ≈ 0 min to speak
Writing an essay or book? See our words to pages chart or check your Flesch readability score.—
Enter text to see keyword density.
Flesch Reading Ease
—Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
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No. Word, character and sentence counting runs entirely on your device with no upload; e.g. an 800-word draft or 5,000 characters stays on-device, works offline free, and closing the tab clears text. Nothing is sent to a server.
It divides word count by average reading speed of 200 to 238 words per minute. Example: 800 words at 200 WPM is 4.0 minutes and at 238 WPM is 3.4 minutes; 1,500 words is 6.3-7.5 minutes. Skim readers finish faster, technical readers slower.
Pastes up to about 500KB or roughly 100,000 words count instantly locally with live updates. For example, an 800-word draft and 5,000 characters processes in milliseconds, while 100,000-word novels may lag older phones. Split chapters if typing slows; all counting stays offline with no upload and clears on close.
Target tweet threads near 280 characters, meta descriptions near 155 characters, resumes near 500 words, blog posts near 1,500 words, and dissertations beyond 10,000 words. Search intent matters: informational guides rank longer, product blurbs convert shorter. Compare your draft against this length-by-intent table in the guide, then trim anecdotes or expand evidence accordingly.
Microsoft Word treats hyphenated compounds, en-dashes, textboxes, footnotes, and tracked changes differently than browser counters. Google Docs includes headers and comments optionally, while this tool splits strictly on whitespace and punctuation. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters without spaces inflate discrepancies further. Expect one-to-three percent variance, and always submit using your institution's designated counter.
The word counter is a free online instrument for novelists, academics, journalists, recruiters, and marketers who must satisfy strict submission ceilings without installing software. It tallies words, characters including spaces, characters excluding spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading minutes, speaking minutes, and keyword repetition simultaneously. A 1,500-word investigative essay, an 800-word opinion column, or a 2,000-character marketplace blurb all refresh live while drafting. Match length to intent using this reference table: headline 6-12 words | abstract 150-250 words | resume 400-600 words | blog 1,200-1,800 words | thesis 10,000+ words. Reading projection assumes 200 WPM for study and 238 WPM for skimming, so 1,500 words spans 6.3-7.5 minutes. Drafts remain confined to browser memory, function without connectivity after initial load, and vanish upon tab closure.
Tokenization follows transparent heuristics: whitespace delimits words, dual tallies track characters with versus without gaps, terminal punctuation (. ? !) delimits sentences, and blank lines delimit paragraphs. Duration equals words divided by velocity: 800 words at 200 WPM yields 4.0 minutes, at 238 WPM yields 3.4 minutes; a 1,500-word manuscript yields 7.5 minutes study versus 6.3 minutes skim. Density equals occurrences divided by total tokens: 12 repetitions inside 1,000 words equals 1.2%, while 25 repetitions equals 2.5% and risks stuffing penalties. Flesch Reading Ease above 60 and grade below 8 signals accessible prose; lengthy 28-word sentences depress scores sharply. Hyphenated well-being, numeric 3.14, contractions, and CJK logograms challenge naive splitters, causing two-percent deviations versus desktop suites. Pastes approaching 500KB or 100,000 words remain instantaneous on laptops yet may stutter on aging handsets. Audit phrasing in the keyword density tab and cadence in the readability tab.
Paste a 1,500-word dissertation excerpt holding 9,200 characters, 72 sentences, and 11 paragraphs: the dashboard reports 1,500 tokens, 7.5 minutes at 200 WPM, Flesch 62, and 1.2% saturation when your phrase recurs 18 times. Contrast an 800-word narrative with 4,800 characters, 40 sentences, and 6 paragraphs showing 4.0 minutes and brisk cadence. When density surpasses 2.5%, substitute pronouns, prune duplicates, and remeasure instantly. Edge scenarios include pasted PDFs injecting line-break artifacts, spreadsheets contributing tab delimiters, and multilingual abstracts mixing alphabets with hanzi; sanitize imports in our Text Tools workspace beforehand. Ceiling constraints involve 500KB inputs, absence of grammar judgments, and velocity assumptions ignoring diagrams or citations. For manuscript polishing pair counts with /grammar-checker and spoken rehearsal with /text-to-speech. Bookmark thresholds for headlines, abstracts, and essays to accelerate future compliance checks effortlessly.