Count words and characters

Frequently asked questions

How is the word count calculated?

Words are separated by spaces and by dashes between words, as in word processors: "well-known" is one word, a lone "-" isn't a word at all, and a URL counts once. Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other languages written without spaces are split into words by your browser's own dictionary, so a Chinese sentence counts its words, not 1.

What's the difference between the two character counts?

"Characters" counts what you see, spaces included: an emoji family, a flag or an accented letter is one character, as platforms count them, not the 4–11 code units underneath. Below it are the count without spaces, tabs and line breaks, and the size in bytes (UTF-8) for databases and APIs.

How are reading and speaking time estimated?

Reading time assumes an average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute; speaking time assumes an average speaking pace of 130 words per minute. Both are estimates — actual time varies by reader and content complexity.

How is keyword density calculated?

Each word's count is divided by the total number of words and shown as a percentage, with repeated 2–3 word phrases listed below. Common words like "the" and "with" are left out unless you tick "Include common words". Curly apostrophes from Word or Google Docs count as normal ones, so "don’t" stays one word.

Can it check a limit like X's 280 characters or an SMS?

Yes. Pick a limit (an X post, an SEO title or meta description, an SMS, an Instagram caption, a LinkedIn post or your own number) and a bar shows what's used and left, turning red when you're over. X is counted the way X counts (links as 23, most emoji and non-Latin characters as 2), and SMS shows how many messages it takes and when a single character switches it to the shorter Unicode format.

Can I open a document?

Yes: .txt, Markdown, Word (.docx) and PDF files are read in your browser, by opening them or dropping them on the text box. Nothing is uploaded.

Is my text uploaded to a server?

No. All counting happens directly in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is uploaded, logged, or stored anywhere — your text stays private.

Is the Word & Character Counter really free?

It is. No sign-up, no payment details, no expiry date, and no upgrade prompt hiding the useful parts. Every statistic, including readability, keyword density and the limit checks, is included with no document length limit.

Do I need to sign up or install anything?

No. There's no sign-up, no login and no email capture anywhere on the site, and nothing to install. Type or paste your text and the counts update live.