Word Counter

Quick answer: A word counter counts the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in your text as you type. This one also shows reading and speaking time, a readability score, keyword density and how close you are to the limits of Google, X, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. It works in English and Hindi, and your text never leaves your browser.

What does this word counter show?

The word and character count sit at the top of the box and change with every key you press. The panels beside it break your text down further.

Everything runs on your own device with JavaScript, so it keeps working after the page loads, even on a weak connection.

How do I count words in my text?

1. Type in the box, or paste your text with Paste or Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac).
2. Read the word and character count at the top of the box.
3. Check Details for sentences, paragraphs and reading time, and Readability for how easy your text is to read.
4. Type a number in Word goal, such as 1500, to see a progress bar and how many words are left.
5. Use Case to switch to Sentence case, lower case, UPPER CASE or Title Case, and Tidy to remove extra spaces and blank lines left after copy-pasting. Undo brings back the previous version.
6. Press Copy to copy your text, Save .txt to download it, or leave Auto-save on so a closed tab doesn’t lose your work.

Worked example

We pasted this short paragraph into the counter:

UPI lets you send money from your bank account in a few seconds. You only need the other person’s UPI ID or mobile number. Most apps also ask for a 4 or 6 digit PIN before every payment, so keep it secret.

At 205 characters, the paragraph fits in an X post but is too long for a meta description, so that bar turns red.

How does this tool decide what counts as a word?

A word is any run of letters or numbers. An apostrophe or hyphen inside a word keeps it together, and a decimal point or comma between digits keeps a number together. Punctuation, symbols and emoji on their own are not words.

MS Word and Google Docs follow slightly different rules for hyphens, numbers and symbols, so their totals can be off by a few words on long documents. One known quirk here: an abbreviation like “e.g.” followed by a space ends a sentence, so the sentence count can run slightly high.

How many words should my writing be?

Exams and applications set hard limits, while blogs and social posts have lengths that tend to work. Use the word goal to track any of these.

How is reading time calculated?

Reading time is your word count divided by 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed of adults for non-fiction found in a 2019 review of 190 studies by psychologist Marc Brysbaert (Journal of Memory and Language (opens in new tab)). At that speed, a 1,000-word article takes about 4 minutes and 13 seconds. Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a presentation, a school speech or a YouTube voice-over, so the same 1,000 words take about 6 minutes and 40 seconds to say aloud. A 5-minute speech needs about 750 words.

What is a good readability score?

The reading ease number is the Flesch reading ease score, created by Rudolf Flesch in 1948. It uses average sentence length and average syllables per word, and usually lands between 0 and 100. Higher means easier. The school grade uses the Flesch-Kincaid formula, developed for the US Navy in 1975, and estimates the years of schooling a reader needs.

To raise your score, split sentences over 25 words (the tool counts them for you) and swap long words for short ones. The syllable count works for English only, so the tool shows N/A for reading ease and grade when most of your text is Hindi.

What is keyword density?

Keyword density is how often a word or phrase appears, as a percentage of all words. If “UPI” appears 10 times in a 1,000-word article, its density is 1%. Switch between 1 word, 2 words and 3 words to see single words or repeated phrases. Tick Skip common words to hide words such as “the”, “and”, “है” and “का” so the real topics stand out. Bare numbers are left out of the single-word list, and a phrase must appear at least twice to be listed.

There is no ideal keyword density for SEO. Google’s spam policies (opens in new tab) list keyword stuffing as a violation, so use the list to spot words you overuse, not to hit a number. If one word sits far above the rest, swap some uses for a synonym or a pronoun.

What are the character limits for Google, X, Instagram and LinkedIn?

The Character limits panel fills a bar for each one and turns it red once you go over. These are the limits it uses, as of October 2026:

X counts some things differently from this tool. Every emoji counts as 2 characters on X, and every link counts as 23 however long it is. If your post has emoji or links, leave some room below 280.

Does the word counter work for Hindi and Hinglish?

Yes. Words in Devanagari are counted whole, including matras, the anusvara and the chandrabindu, so “हूँ” is one word, not three. The danda (।) and double danda (॥) end a sentence like a full stop does. For example, “मैं दिल्ली में रहता हूँ। आप कहाँ रहते हैं?” counts as 9 words and 2 sentences. Hinglish written in English letters is counted like English, and mixed Hindi and English text works too. Common Hindi words such as है, का, की and में are skipped in keyword density along with English ones. Only the reading ease score and grade are English-only.

Is my text private?

Yes. All counting happens in your browser, and your text is never sent to Technical Adda or anyone else. With Auto-save on, a copy is kept in your browser’s local storage on your device only, so you can close the tab and come back to it. On a shared or office computer, turn Auto-save off, which also deletes the saved copy.

Wondering whether a draft reads like ChatGPT wrote it? Paste it into our AI content detector. For timed writing practice for exams, try the typing speed test, and for writing help from AI, see our list of free AI tools for students and our ChatGPT prompts for resume writing.

Key facts

• Adults read non-fiction silently at about 238 words per minute on average, based on a review of 190 studies. (Brysbaert, 2019 (opens in new tab))
• IELTS Writing Task 1 needs at least 150 words in about 20 minutes, and Task 2 at least 250 words in about 40 minutes. (IELTS (opens in new tab))
• Google sets no limit on title or meta description length, but cuts both in results to fit the device width. (Google Search Central (opens in new tab))
• An X post holds 280 weighted characters. Each emoji counts as 2 and each link as 23. (X Developer docs (opens in new tab))
• Keyword stuffing is listed as a spam practice in Google’s search spam policies. (Google Search Central (opens in new tab))