Word Counter

What is a word counter?

A word counter is a free online tool that tells you exactly how many words and characters your text contains. As you type or paste, it counts words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and lines, and estimates reading time, speaking time, page count, and keyword density — all in real time. It is useful for essays, articles, social media posts, meta descriptions, cover letters, and any writing with a length limit.

How to use this word counter

1. Type directly into the box above, or paste text you already have.
2. Every count updates instantly — there is no button to press.
3. Read the live totals, the extra stats (pages, lines, unique words), the character-limit panel, and the top-words (keyword density) panel.
4. Use Clear to start over or Copy text to grab your text again.

How many pages is your word count?

A frequent question is how many pages a word count fills. As a rough guide at 12pt in a standard font:

• Single-spaced: about 500 words per page
• Double-spaced: about 250 words per page

So 1,000 words is roughly 2 single-spaced or 4 double-spaced pages. The tool shows an approximate page count as you type. Your real page count depends on font, size, spacing, and margins.

Word counter for essays and assignments

Most essays and assignments come with a strict word limit. Common targets are 250, 300, 500, 1,000, and 2,500 words. Paste your draft to see the live word count and stay within the limit — many markers allow roughly ±10% of the target. The reading time also helps when you are preparing a talk or presentation.

Character counter and social media limits

For social media and SEO it is the character count that matters. The character-limit panel checks your text live against the most common limits:

• X (Twitter) post: 280 characters
• Instagram caption: 2,200 · Instagram bio: 150
• TikTok caption: 2,200 · LinkedIn post: 3,000
• SEO title tag: ~60 · Meta description: ~160 · SMS: 160

Reading time and speaking time (words to minutes)

Reading time is estimated from your word count at an average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute; speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a comfortable presentation pace. Both speeds are adjustable — pick slow, average, fast, or skimming for reading, and slow, presentation, or conversational for speaking. Use it to check how long a speech, presentation, podcast script, or video voiceover will take.

Readability checker: how easy is your text to read?

The Readability tab scores your text with the six standard readability formulas and turns them into one plain answer — for example “Plain English, about US grade 8”. Syllables are counted with a pronouncing dictionary of more than 50,000 words rather than guessed from spelling, so the scores are more accurate than most online checkers.

Most newspapers aim for grade 8–10, and plain-language guidelines for public information aim for grade 8 or below. Shorter sentences and everyday words are the quickest ways to make text easier to read. The scores are most reliable for 100 words or more.

Writing check: long sentences, passive voice, and wordy phrases

The Writing check tab highlights what makes text harder to read, right in your text:

• Hard sentences (20+ words, yellow) and very hard sentences (30+ words, red) — try splitting them in two.
• Passive voice — “the report was written by the team” is usually clearer as “the team wrote the report”.
• Adverbs — words like “quickly” or “extremely”; a stronger verb often works better.
• Filler words — very, really, just, basically, actually — which can usually be cut.
• Simpler alternatives — “utilize” → “use”, “in order to” → “to”, “approximately” → “about”.

Hover over (or tap) any highlight to see why it was flagged. These are suggestions for clear, plain English, not grammar errors — use your judgment.

Word frequency, keyword density, and vocabulary level

The Word frequency tab lists every word in your text with its count and density — or switch to 2- and 3-word phrases to find repeated expressions. Common words like “the” and “and” are hidden unless you include them, and you can download the full list as a CSV file. It is handy for SEO keyword density, for spotting repetition, and for studying a text’s vocabulary.

The Vocabulary level tab shows how many different words you use (your lexical variety) and how your words split between everyday, common, advanced, and rare vocabulary — a quick way to see whether a text suits beginners or advanced readers, and to spot the harder words in it.

Counting words in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

Languages such as Chinese and Japanese do not put spaces between words, so a traditional word count is not meaningful for them — the character count is the standard measure instead. If you are counting CJK text, read the “Characters” figure rather than “Words”. For more on writing systems, see the Linguaholic Japanese guides.

Using it with Google Docs, Word, and PDFs

You can count words from any source: copy the text from a Google Doc, Microsoft Word file, or PDF and paste it into the box. The counts update instantly, and because everything runs in your browser, the content is never uploaded or stored.

Is my text private?

Yes. This word counter runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device and is never stored or transmitted, so you can safely count confidential documents and drafts. It even works offline.

Learning English? Explore more grammar and vocabulary guides on the Linguaholic English blog.