Text & writing · Count Analyze
Word Count
Count words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and estimated reading time. Free online word counter — paste your text and get instant results.
How it works
Counts words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in your text and estimates the reading time based on your chosen words-per-minute speed. Useful for essays, blog posts, and writing projects with word limits.
Step by step
- 1Split the text on whitespace to count words (consecutive whitespace counts as one separator).
- 2Count all characters including spaces, then subtract spaces for the no-spaces count.
- 3Count sentence-ending punctuation (. ! ?) for the sentence count.
- 4Count non-empty lines separated by two or more newlines for the paragraph count.
- 5Divide word count by words-per-minute (default 200) to get reading time.
Examples
Short paragraph
9 words ÷ 200 wpm = 0.045 minutes, displayed as < 1 min.
Inputs
- text:
- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
- wpm:
- 200
Result
- words:
- 9
- characters:
- 44
- sentences:
- 1
- readingTime:
- < 1 min
Frequently asked questions
How is reading time calculated?▾
Reading time is estimated by dividing the word count by your chosen reading speed (default 200 words per minute, which is average for adults). You can adjust the WPM value for your audience.
Does this count characters with or without spaces?▾
Both. The tool shows characters including spaces and characters excluding spaces separately, which is useful when dealing with different platform limits.