How to use
- Type or paste your text into the box. The counts update as you type.
- Read the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, plus reading and speaking time.
- Check Top keywords to spot words you repeat too often.
- Press Copy result to copy the counts. Your text is never uploaded, saved or put in the page link.
How the counting works
- Words: your browser splits the text with the Unicode word rules. A hyphenated word such as “well-known” counts as one word, and so do “don’t”, “3.14” and “1,000”.
- Characters are counted as you see them, so “é” or 👍🏽 counts as 1.
- Sentences end at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, but not after titles such as “Mr.” or “Dr.”.
- Paragraphs are lines that aren’t blank.
- Reading time = words ÷ 238 a minute. Speaking time = words ÷ 183 a minute. These are the average adult speeds for silent reading of non-fiction and for reading aloud, from Brysbaert’s 2019 review of 190 studies.
- Keyword density = uses of a word ÷ all words × 100. Common words such as “the” and “and” are left out.
Example
Tap Try a sample text. It has 43 words in 4 sentences and 2 paragraphs.
- Reading time: 43 ÷ 238 × 60 = 10.84, so about 11 seconds.
- Speaking time: 43 ÷ 183 × 60 = 14.10, so about 14 seconds.
- “Short”, “sentences” and “read” each appear twice: 2 ÷ 43 × 100 = 4.7% density.
Reading and speaking time by length
| Words | Reading (238 a minute) | Speaking (183 a minute) |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 5,000 | 21 min 1 sec | 27 min 19 sec |
Most adults read non-fiction at 175 to 300 words a minute, so treat these times as averages.
Counting rules in detail
- Languages without spaces, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, are split with your browser’s built-in dictionary. Counts can differ slightly between browsers.
- Older browsers without this feature count each Chinese or Japanese character as a word.
- Dashes and slashes separate words, so “and/or” and “word—word” are two words each.
- Abbreviations other than titles, such as “e.g.” before a capital letter, can still end a sentence. The Unicode rules can’t spot every abbreviation.
- Very long texts (over 20,000 characters) are recounted a moment after you stop typing, to keep the page smooth.
Need to fit a limit on X, in a text message or in a meta description? Use the character counter.