Word Counter & Reading Time
Count words, characters and sentences and see how long your text takes to read or say out loud, right in your browser
Text Input
Type a few sentences to see the words you repeat most.
Short common words (the, and, of…) are left out. The percentage is keyword density: the share of all words.
How to use this tool
- Type or paste your text into the box; the counts update on every keystroke.
- Read words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences and paragraphs.
- Check the reading time and the speaking time to see how long the text takes to read silently or aloud.
- Use Copy to take the text elsewhere, or Clear to start again.
Worked example
Paste a 600-word blog post. The reading time is 600 ÷ 238 words per minute, about 2 min 31 sec, while reading it aloud at 183 words per minute takes about 3 min 17 sec. So a 3-minute video script of about 550 words is right at the limit, while a 600-word article is a quick two-and-a-half-minute read. Because the tool counts Unicode characters and splits words on whitespace, it suits limits such as meta descriptions or social posts, but languages written without spaces will count a whole sentence as one word.
Methodology
Everything is computed by JavaScript in your browser on each keystroke. Words are runs of non-space characters separated by whitespace; Characters counts Unicode characters (an emoji is 1, not 2) including spaces and line breaks; Sentences end at . ! ? or an ellipsis that is followed by a space or the end of the text, so 3.14 does not split a sentence, although an abbreviation such as Dr. followed by a space can; Paragraphs are non-empty lines.
Reading and speaking time at common word counts
Here is what the counter shows for round word counts, using its own formulas: reading time is words ÷ 238 and speaking time is words ÷ 183 (words per minute), rounded to the nearest second.
| Words | Reading time | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 25 sec | 33 sec |
| 250 | 1 min 3 sec | 1 min 22 sec |
| 500 | 2 min 6 sec | 2 min 44 sec |
| 1,000 | 4 min 12 sec | 5 min 28 sec |
| 1,500 | 6 min 18 sec | 8 min 12 sec |
| 2,000 | 8 min 24 sec | 10 min 56 sec |
How to read it: the speaking column is the one to check for a talk or a video script, which runs about 30% longer than silent reading. The limits are real, though: both rates are averages for English text, a slow or technical text pushes the time up, and pauses, slides and demos are not included. Use the table to plan, then time a rehearsal.
Frequently asked questions
How are hyphens, numbers and dashes counted? ▼
Anything separated by whitespace is one word. The compound well-known is one word, 3.14 is one word and an email address is one word. A lone dash or symbol with spaces on both sides, such as the one in this sentence - right here, is counted as a word too, which matches the behavior of most word processors. If you need a stricter count, remove stand-alone symbols first.
How accurate are the reading and speaking times? ▼
They are averages, not predictions for you. 238 wpm is the English non-fiction mean from Brysbaert (2019); individual readers range widely, and dense technical text, a second language or reading on a small screen slow people down. The 183 wpm speaking figure is for reading aloud. Use the numbers to plan roughly, for example a 5-minute talk is about 900 words, and then time a real rehearsal.
Why does my count differ from Word, Google Docs or a character limit? ▼
Small differences usually come from edge cases. This tool counts characters as Unicode characters, so an emoji counts as 1, while some platforms count it as 2 or more. It counts every line break as a paragraph, including single ones, and its sentence rule is approximate: abbreviations such as Dr. or e.g. followed by a space can add an extra sentence. For a hard limit, such as an SMS or a form field, test with the limit of the platform itself.
Is the text I type saved or sent anywhere? ▼
The page does not send your text to a server and does not store it; counting happens in your browser as you type. Closing or reloading the tab discards it. As with any web page, browser extensions or a shared device are outside the page's control, so avoid pasting highly confidential material on a computer you do not trust.
What is keyword density, and what is a good value? ▼
Keyword density is how often a word appears as a share of all the words in the text: a word used 6 times in 300 words has a density of 2%. The “Most used words” list shows it for your five most frequent words, leaving out short common words. There is no official ideal value; write for the reader, and if one word stands far above the others, a synonym or a pronoun usually reads better.