Word & character counter.
Type or paste your text. See words, characters and reading time as you write.
No uploads. No saved documents.
Character limit Optional
Counts visible characters. Social platforms may count links or emojis differently.
Count words and characters as you write
Paste an essay, draft, caption or message to see live counts. There is no submit step. Open Character limit only when you need to check a particular length. Your text stays on this device.
- Live word and visible-character counts, including Unicode text
- Sentences, paragraphs, lines and estimated reading time
- Optional character limits with clear remaining or excess counts
Common questions
How do I count words in my text?
Type or paste into the text box. Word and character counts update automatically, along with sentences, paragraphs, lines and reading time. Copy text copies your original text; Clear removes it.
How are characters and emojis counted?
Characters count what you see: a letter with an accent or a joined family emoji counts as one character. Spaces and line breaks are included in Characters. The secondary count excludes whitespace. Windows and Mac line endings are treated as a single line break. Other counters may count multi-part characters differently.
How are words, sentences and paragraphs counted?
Words and sentences use Unicode segmentation, including support for text without spaces such as Chinese. Numbers count as words; punctuation and emoji alone do not. Apostrophes inside words stay together and hyphens can separate words. A blank line separates paragraphs; a line break creates a new line. A final line break counts an empty last line. Segmentation can vary slightly between browsers and languages.
How is reading time estimated?
The estimate uses 200 words per minute for silent reading. It shows seconds for short text and rounded-up minutes for longer text. Reading speed varies with the person, language and difficulty; this is a guide, not a measured duration.
Can I check a character limit?
Open Character limit and choose a preset or enter your own whole-number limit. You will see how many characters remain or how far you are over. Social platforms can apply their own rules for links, emoji or weighted characters, so use their editor for the final platform-specific check.
Is my text saved or uploaded?
No. Text is counted in your browser without an account or server upload. Leaving or refreshing this tool clears it. The text box supports up to one million basic characters; complex characters may reach the limit sooner. Very large documents can take a moment to count.