About Word Counter

Word Counter is a free tool that counts your text instantly (words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and more) right as you type or paste. No sign-up, no clutter, just the numbers you need.

Everything you need at a glance

Beyond a simple word and character count, it shows characters without spaces, sentence and paragraph counts, estimated reading and speaking time, and a breakdown of your most-used keywords. Highlight any part of your text and it counts just that selection, too.

Built for writers, students, and professionals

Whether you're staying under an essay limit, hitting a word count for an assignment, trimming a meta description, fitting a social post, or checking how long a speech will run, Word Counter gives you the answer immediately and updates live with every keystroke.

Private by design

Your text never leaves your device. Everything is counted locally in your browser; nothing is uploaded, stored, or sent anywhere. You can paste sensitive drafts with confidence. For details on the cookies used by advertising, see our Privacy Policy.

That claim is a property of how the tool is built rather than a promise about how it is operated. The counting script contains no network calls of any kind, so there is no request that could carry your text off the page even in principle. It also writes nothing to browser storage, which means nothing survives a reload: close the tab and the text is gone.

Free and instant

There's no account and nothing to install. It works on phones, tablets, and computers, and it's designed to load and respond instantly.

How the numbers are produced

Every figure the tool reports follows a rule that is stated in plain language on the home page. Words are runs of characters bounded by whitespace, which is the same convention Microsoft Word and Google Docs use. Sentences are found from terminal punctuation, with decimals and common abbreviations filtered out so that "3.5" and "Dr." do not create false endings. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. Reading time uses 225 words per minute and speaking time uses 130, both of which are explained and sourced in the reading speed guide.

Stating the rules matters because counters disagree, and a number you cannot explain is a number you cannot defend to a marker or an editor. Where this tool differs from a word processor, the FAQ says why.

The written guides

Alongside the counter there is a set of reference guides covering the questions that bring people to a counter in the first place: how many words fit on a page, how many pages a word count fills, how long a speech runs, character limits across platforms, application essay limits, academic lengths from abstracts to theses, sentence and paragraph length, and how to cut a draft down to a limit. They are written to be read once and remembered, not to pad a page.

Corrections

Platform limits change, research gets revised, and conventions drift. If something here is out of date or simply wrong, the fastest way to get it fixed is to say so. Corrections are welcome and they get made.

Who runs this site

Word Counter Plus is built and maintained by Nathan Hays, who makes a family of free, single-purpose web tools. The site sells nothing; its only job is to count your words fast and keep your text on your device. Questions and corrections are welcome at [email protected].