Word Counter — Count Words, Characters & Sentences Online Free [2026]
Instantly count words, characters (with/without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and reading time. Paste your text or essay and get detailed stats. Free online word counter tool.
Platform Character Limits
Your count: 0What is Word Counter?
How to Use Word Counter
Paste or type your text into the input area. The counter instantly updates showing word count, character count (with and without spaces), sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading time. Use the "Clear" button to reset and start with new text. All stats update in real-time as you type.
How Word Counter Works
Common Use Cases
- Students ensuring essays meet minimum or maximum word count requirements
- Bloggers and content writers hitting SEO target lengths for articles
- Checking character counts before posting to social media platforms
- Academic papers with strict word limits for abstracts or sections
- Copywriters measuring headline and subject line lengths
- Translators estimating project scope by source word count
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the word counter count words?▼
The tool splits text on whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines) and counts non-empty tokens. Hyphenated words like "well-being" count as one word. Numbers like "2026" count as one word. Punctuation attached to words is stripped before counting.
What is the difference between characters with and without spaces?▼
Characters with spaces counts every character including spaces and line breaks. Characters without spaces counts only letters, numbers, and punctuation — excluding all whitespace. Twitter counts characters with spaces; some systems like some CMS platforms count without.
How accurate is the reading time estimate?▼
The estimate uses 200 words per minute, which is the average adult silent reading speed. Actual reading time varies by text complexity and individual reading speed. Academic or technical content typically reads slower; simple prose reads faster.
Is there a character or word limit for this tool?▼
No. You can paste text of any length — short tweets or entire book chapters. All processing happens in your browser, so there are no server upload limits.
Does the word counter work for languages other than English?▼
The tool counts words based on whitespace separation, which works for most space-separated languages (Spanish, French, German, etc.). For languages without spaces between words (Chinese, Japanese, Thai), the word count will not be accurate, but character count will still work correctly.
Can I use this for checking Twitter/X character limits?▼
Yes. Twitter/X has a 280-character limit per post (4,000 for Blue/Premium). Use the "Characters (with spaces)" count to check your tweet length. Note: Twitter counts URLs as 23 characters regardless of actual length, which this tool does not account for.
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