Word Counter Online Free

Type or paste any text and watch the numbers update live, words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, lines, plus reading and speaking time estimates and your top five keywords. Pure browser, no upload, no signup.

Your Text
0 words · 0 chars · 0s read
Statistics
0
Words
0
Characters
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No Spaces
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Lines
Reading 0s
Speaking 0s
Avg word 0
Start typing to see your most common words.
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How to Use the Word Counter

1

Type or Paste

Type your text or click Paste to drop in content from your clipboard.

2

Read the Sidebar

Watch words, characters, sentences, and reading time update live as you type.

3

Save Your Work

Click Copy to grab the text or Download to save as a TXT file.

Why Use Our Word Counter?

Live as You Type

Six headline metrics, Words, Characters (with spaces), Characters (no spaces), Sentences, Paragraphs, Lines, recompute on every keystroke and paste, with no debounce delay. The quickbar under the textarea also shows a one-line summary (words, characters, reading time) so the most-asked numbers are always in your peripheral vision while writing.

Reading & Speaking Time

Reading time is calculated at 238 words per minute (the average adult silent-reading rate per a 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies). Speaking time uses 130 wpm, the typical conversational pace for English presentations and audiobook narration. Both update live so you can size up a piece for a 5-minute talk, a 30-second TikTok script, or a 10-minute podcast intro.

Top 5 Keywords

A live top-5 keyword list with frequency bars surfaces the words you are leaning on most. Common stop words ("the", "and", "of", "for", "is") are auto-filtered, as are sub-3-character tokens and pure numbers, so what you see is the actual content vocabulary of your draft, useful for catching repetition, monitoring SEO focus, and trimming filler.

Distraction-Free Fullscreen

Hit the fullscreen icon (or press F) to expand the editor to the full viewport, sidebar, sticky stats, and all. The textarea grows to fill the screen with a max-resolution writing surface, the live stats stay visible on the right, and Esc exits at any time. Perfect for long-form drafting, fitness-meeting notes, or any focused writing session.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about counting words and reading time.

How is a word counted?
A word is any contiguous sequence of letters, digits, apostrophes, or hyphens, so "don't", "self-aware", "iPhone17", and "rock'n'roll" all count as a single word each. Whitespace, punctuation, line breaks, and tab characters are word boundaries. Numbers count as words. Common edge cases handled correctly: trailing apostrophes, em-dashes between words, and Unicode whitespace.
Why is the reading time 238 wpm and not 200?
A 2019 meta-analysis by Brysbaert that pooled 190 studies of adult English silent reading found 238 words per minute as the average. The older 200 wpm number is folk wisdom and underestimates real-world reading speed by roughly 15%. Speaking is set at 130 wpm, the typical conversational presentation pace; auctioneers, news anchors, and audiobook narrators run faster (180-250 wpm), but 130 is the right starting point for most use cases.
How are sentences counted?
Sentences are detected by finding stretches of text that end with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. Trailing text without a final punctuation mark still counts as one sentence (so a single phrase typed without a period registers as 1, not 0). Abbreviations like "Mr." and "U.S." can occasionally inflate the count by one, the tool errs on the side of counting them as terminators rather than missing real sentence ends.
Is my text private?
Yes. Every count, time estimate, and keyword analysis runs as plain JavaScript inside your browser, there is no API call, no server-side processing, no logging of what you write. Open DevTools → Network while you type; you will see exactly zero outbound requests carrying your text. Use it freely for client briefs, NDA-bound drafts, course assignments, journals, or anything else you would not normally trust to a free online tool.
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