Free Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type, with a word goal and your most used words
Word goal
Set a target and watch the bar fill as you write.
500 words to go (0 of 500).
Most used words
The words you repeat most, with their share of all words. Useful for spotting overused words and checking keyword density.
Start typing to see your most used words.
Reading and speaking time
Your text stays in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, sent to an AI, or saved.
Key takeaways
This word counter updates live as you type or paste, and shows words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and speaking time.
It runs in your browser. Your text is not uploaded, saved or sent to an AI.
Set a word goal to see how many words are left, and check your most used words to catch repetition or measure keyword density.
Different programs count slightly differently, so the numbers can differ from Word or Google Docs by a few words. The rules are explained below.
What This Word Counter Shows
Paste text into the box above and you get an instant count of:
- Words. The main number, shown first.
- Characters, with and without spaces.
- Sentences and paragraphs.
- Reading time and speaking time, which you can adjust to your own pace.
Below the box you will find a word goal with a progress bar, and a table of your most used words with each word's share of the total. Everything updates as you type, so you can watch the number move while you edit.
How Words Are Counted
Every counter makes small choices about what counts as a word, which is why two tools can disagree by a few words. These are the rules this one follows:
- A word is a run of characters between spaces that contains at least one letter or number.
- Hyphenated words such as "well-known" count as one word, and so do contractions such as "don't".
- Numbers count as words, so "3.14" and "1,000" are one word each.
- A lone dash, symbol or emoji with spaces around it is not counted as a word. Some programs count these, so you may see a small difference.
- Chinese, Japanese and Thai are written without spaces. For those scripts the counter uses your browser's built-in word segmentation to find the words.
- A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space, with exceptions for common abbreviations such as "Dr." and for decimals. A line break before a capital letter also ends a sentence, so headings and list items count.
- A paragraph is any line that contains at least one word. Press Enter once to start a new one.
If a word limit is strict, such as an assignment, a contest or a submission form, check the count in the program they will use as well, since that is the one that decides.
Set a Word Goal
Many writing jobs come with a target: a 500 word summary, a 1,500 word article, a 250 word abstract. Enter your target in the Word goal box, or pick one of the common ones, and the bar fills as you write. It also tells you plainly how many words are left, or how many you are over.
If you need to trim, the free AI summarizer can show you a shorter version of a passage. If you are short, the paragraph expander can help you develop a thin section. Both are optional next steps, and the buttons under the text box send your text to them.
Find Your Most Used Words
The most used words panel lists the words you repeat most, with a count and a percentage of all your words. It is useful for two things:
- Spotting repetition. If the same word fills your top three, vary it or cut it.
- Checking keyword density. If you write for search, you can see how often your main phrase's key word appears. Treat density as a sanity check, not a target, because writing for readers matters more than hitting a percentage.
Common words such as "the" and "and" are hidden by default so the list shows words with meaning. You can turn that off.
When People Use a Word Counter
- Students checking an essay against a word limit. See also how many pages a word count makes in our guide to how many pages 1,000 words is.
- Bloggers and SEO writers planning the length of a post and checking repetition.
- Authors tracking a daily count. Our guide to how many words are in a novel has typical ranges.
- Speechwriters turning a word count into minutes with the speaking time estimate.
- Marketers fitting copy into a limit. For platform limits, use the character counter.
- Editors checking that cuts really cut.
Your Text Stays in Your Browser
The counting happens on your device, in the page you are looking at. Nothing you type is sent to Writingful or to an AI, and nothing is saved when you close the tab. The buttons that open an AI tool are the only exception: if you click one, your text is carried over to that tool so you can work on it there.
What This Counter Cannot Tell You
A word count says how long your text is, not how good it is. It cannot tell you whether a limit includes headings, footnotes or references, because every assignment and publisher decides that differently. It also counts what you paste, so text copied from a web page or a PDF may include extra words such as menu items or page numbers. If the number looks wrong, check what was pasted.
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