Word and character limits are everywhere: meta descriptions cap at roughly 160 characters, a tweet at 280, university essays at a fixed word count, and most ad platforms enforce headline limits to the character. This counter updates live as you type, so you can write to the limit rather than checking afterwards.
How to use the Word Counter
- Paste or type your text into the box
- Watch the counts update live as you type
- Check the specific count your platform limits — usually characters including spaces
- Edit down until you are inside the limit
Which count actually matters
Different limits count different things, and mixing them up is the usual cause of a rejected submission.
- Characters including spaces — what nearly every platform means by a character limit. Twitter/X, meta descriptions, and SMS all count this way.
- Characters excluding spaces — occasionally used by academic submission systems and translation pricing.
- Words — the standard for essays, articles and reports. Counted here as runs of non-whitespace, which is how word processors do it.
- Sentences and paragraphs — useful for pacing. Very long sentences are the most common readability problem in technical writing.
How reading time is calculated
Reading time here assumes 200 words per minute, the commonly cited average for adult silent reading of general-interest prose.
Treat it as a rough guide rather than a measurement. Actual speed varies enormously with material: dense technical documentation or legal text is often read at 100–150 wpm, while familiar, conversational content can run to 300 wpm or more. Anything with code samples, tables or diagrams breaks the estimate entirely, because readers stop and study rather than read linearly.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens entirely in your browser as you type. Nothing is transmitted or stored, which matters if you are drafting anything confidential.
How are words counted exactly?
By splitting on whitespace and counting non-empty runs. A hyphenated term like 'client-side' counts as one word; 'up to date' counts as three. This matches how Word and Google Docs behave.
What is a good length for a meta description?
Around 150–160 characters. Google truncates longer ones in search results, usually mid-sentence, so put the important part first regardless of total length.
Does the counter handle other languages?
Character counts are accurate for any language. Word counts rely on whitespace separation, so they are accurate for most European languages but not for Chinese, Japanese or Thai, which do not put spaces between words.