About Word Counter

Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and reading time. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Text / String collection.

Use Cases

• Verifying blog post length meets editorial guidelines
• Checking character counts for meta descriptions under 160 chars
• Estimating reading time for documentation pages
• Counting words in academic abstracts with strict limits

Tips

• Check estimated reading time for blog posts and articles
• Monitor character count for social media post limits
• Use sentence count to gauge content complexity at a glance

Fun Facts

• The average adult reading speed is 238 words per minute, according to a 2019 meta-analysis by Marc Brysbaert.
• Twitter's 140-character limit was based on the 160-character SMS limit, minus 20 characters reserved for the username.
• The longest word in the English language, at 189,819 letters, is the full chemical name of the protein titin.

FAQ

What counts as a word?

Sequences of letters/digits separated by whitespace or punctuation. Contractions (it's, don't) count as one word. Hyphenated compounds (mother-in-law) count as one.

How is reading time calculated?

Assumes 230 words per minute — a global average for silent reading of general content. Technical content is slower; fiction is faster. Treat the estimate as a rough guide.

Does it count characters with and without spaces?

Both — shown side by side. 'With spaces' is the raw character count; 'without' skips whitespace. Useful for character-limited fields (Twitter, SMS, meta descriptions).

What about sentences and paragraphs?

Yes. Sentences are detected by `.`, `!`, `?` terminators. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. Useful for essay-length estimation.