Word & Character Counter

How to use the word and character counter

1. Paste or type your text into the box. Everything updates as you type, so you can edit and watch the numbers change.
2. Read the counts. You get words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, average word and sentence length, and estimated reading and speaking time.
3. Check your keywords. The list shows the ten words you use most, with how many times each appears and its share of all the words. Very common words such as "the", "and" and "with" are left out.
4. Adjust the speeds if you like. Reading and speaking times are estimates based on the words-per-minute values below the text box. Change them to match your audience or your own pace.

What counts as a word, a sentence and a paragraph

A word is any run of letters or numbers. Words joined by an apostrophe or a hyphen, such as "don't" or "well-known", count as one word. Punctuation and symbols on their own are not counted as words. The counter works with letters from any alphabet, so it can count text in languages such as Spanish, German, Urdu or Russian, as long as the language uses spaces between words.

A sentence ends with a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a space or the end of the text. A blank line also ends a sentence, so headings and list items are counted. Abbreviations such as "e.g." or "Dr." can make the sentence count slightly higher than you expect, because the counter cannot always tell an abbreviation from the end of a sentence.

A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next one by at least one blank line. Single line breaks inside a block do not start a new paragraph.

Characters with and without spaces

Different places count characters in different ways. Many social networks, form fields and marketplace titles count every character, including spaces. Some translation and publishing work is priced per character without spaces. The counter shows both, so you can use whichever one applies. Letters, including accented letters typed in the normal way, count as one character each. Some emoji that are built from several parts, such as family or flag emoji, may count as more than one.

About the reading and speaking time

Reading speed varies a lot between people and between types of text. A light blog post is read much faster than a technical manual. The default of 200 words per minute for reading and 130 words per minute for speaking are round, cautious figures for planning, not measurements. If you are timing a speech, read part of it aloud with a timer and enter your own pace for a more accurate estimate.

Using the keyword list

The keyword list is useful for two things. First, it shows if you are repeating a word too often, which makes writing feel clumsy. Second, it lets you check that the main topic of a page, product description or essay actually appears in the text. There is no ideal keyword percentage. Write naturally for the reader, and use the list as a check rather than a target. Our guide to word counts for blog posts and product descriptions explains how to think about length.

Common uses

• Staying within a word limit for an essay, application or article
• Checking the length of product titles and descriptions. For Etsy titles and tags, use our title and tag checker.
• Planning how long a speech or video script will take to read aloud
• Spotting overused words before you publish

Want the full explanation? Read our guide: How long should a blog post or product description be?.

More guides on this topic:

• How to write Etsy product descriptions that sell