What the word counter reports
Paste or type any text and the counter updates instantly with characters (with and without spaces), words, sentences, paragraphs and lines. It runs entirely in your browser, so drafts, essays, cover letters and confidential documents never leave your machine. Use it to hit a word limit, check a character cap for a social post or meta description, or estimate reading time before publishing.
How each count is defined
- Characters: every Unicode character including spaces, punctuation and line breaks. “Without spaces” excludes spaces, tabs and newlines. Emoji and accented letters each count as one character, matching how most platforms count.
- Words: runs of non-whitespace characters. Hyphenated terms (“well-known”) count as one word; numbers and URLs count as one word each. This matches Microsoft Word and Google Docs for ordinary prose.
- Sentences: segments ending in a period, question mark or exclamation mark followed by whitespace or the end of the text. Abbreviations such as “e.g.” can inflate the count slightly.
- Paragraphs: blocks of text separated by at least one blank line.
- Lines: the number of line breaks plus one, including blank lines.
Character limits you are likely to hit
| Platform / field | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 characters | URLs count as 23; emoji count as 2 |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters | Truncated after ~125 in feed |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters | "See more" after ~210 |
| Facebook post | 63,206 characters | Truncated after ~477 |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 characters | |
| YouTube title / description | 100 / 5,000 characters | |
| Google title tag | ~60 characters | Cut by pixel width, not characters |
| Google meta description | ~155–160 characters | Often rewritten by Google |
| SMS (GSM-7) | 160 characters | 70 if any non-GSM character (emoji, Thai, etc.) |
| Email subject line | ~50–60 characters | Visible on mobile |
| Apple App Store name | 30 characters |
Common word-count targets
| Document | Typical length |
|---|---|
| College application essay (Common App) | 250–650 words |
| Cover letter | 250–400 words |
| Blog post (SEO-oriented) | 1,000–2,000 words |
| News article | 400–800 words |
| Short story | 1,000–7,500 words |
| Novella | 17,500–40,000 words |
| Novel | 70,000–100,000 words |
| Undergraduate essay | 1,500–3,000 words |
| Master's thesis | 15,000–30,000 words |
| PhD dissertation | 60,000–100,000 words |
| Five-minute speech | 600–750 words |
Estimating reading and speaking time
Reading time ≈ words ÷ 238 (average adult silent reading, minutes)
Speaking time ≈ words ÷ 150 (conversational presentation pace)A 1,200-word article takes about five minutes to read and eight minutes to read aloud. Technical material is read more slowly (150–200 wpm); skimming is faster (400+). For speeches, 130 wpm sounds deliberate and 160 wpm brisk; most presenters speed up under pressure, so write for 140 and you will land near your time slot.
Why counts differ between tools
Different software makes different choices about edge cases. Word treats an em dash with no surrounding spaces as joining two words; Google Docs splits them. Some counters treat “3.5” as one word, others as two. Contractions, slashes (“and/or”) and hyphens are all handled inconsistently across tools. Differences of one or two percent on a long document are normal; if a limit is strict, count with the same tool the recipient will use.