Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs, then check reading/speaking time, readability, and keyword density — updated live as you type.
Readability
Keyword Density
| # | Word | Count | % of words |
|---|
Start typing to see your most frequent words.
How to Count Words, Characters, and Reading Time
- Paste or type your text into the box above — the counters update live as you type, with no button to click.
- Check the Words, Characters, Chars (no spaces), Sentences, and Paragraphs stats in the row below the text box.
- Look at Reading Time and Speaking Time to see roughly how long the text takes to read silently versus read aloud.
- Scroll to the Readability panel for a Flesch Reading Ease score and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, plus the average words per sentence and syllables per word behind them.
- Scroll to the Keyword Density table to see your top 10 most-used words with their count and percentage — toggle "Exclude common words" to filter out filler words like "the" and "is".
- Use Copy Text to grab your text for elsewhere, or Clear Text to start over with a blank box.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the counter decide what counts as one word?
It trims your text and splits it on runs of whitespace, so anything separated by a space, tab, or line break counts as a separate word. A hyphenated word like "well-known" is counted as a single word since there's no space inside it.
How is the sentence count calculated?
The tool matches runs of text ending in a period, question mark, or exclamation point. This means abbreviations like "Mr. Smith" or "e.g." can inflate the sentence count, since any period is treated as a sentence boundary.
How is the reading time estimated?
Reading time is your word count divided by 200 words per minute, rounded up to the nearest whole minute, with a minimum of 1 minute shown whenever there's text. 200 wpm is a commonly used average adult silent-reading speed.
What's the difference between "Characters" and "Chars (no spaces)"?
"Characters" counts every character in the box, including spaces, tabs, and line breaks. "Chars (no spaces)" strips out all whitespace characters first, so it only counts letters, numbers, and punctuation.
Does this tool upload or store my text anywhere?
No. All counting happens instantly in your browser's JavaScript as you type — nothing is sent to a server, so your text never leaves your device.
What's the difference between Reading Time and Speaking Time?
Reading Time estimates how long it takes to read the text silently, based on 200 words per minute. Speaking Time estimates how long it would take to read the text aloud, based on 130 words per minute — a commonly used average speaking pace — which is why Speaking Time is usually longer than Reading Time for the same text.
How is the readability score calculated?
The Flesch Reading Ease score is calculated from your average sentence length and average syllables per word, using the formula 206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words). Syllables are estimated by counting vowel groups in each word, so the result is a close estimate rather than a dictionary-exact count. Scores are capped between 0 (very confusing) and 100 (very easy). The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level uses the same inputs in a different formula to estimate the U.S. school grade needed to understand the text.
How is the keyword density table calculated?
The tool strips punctuation, lowercases every word, and counts how many times each one appears in your text. The top 10 most frequent words are listed with their count and their percentage share of the words counted. Turn on "Exclude common words" to remove filler words like "the," "a," and "is" from the table, which is useful for spotting the meaningful keywords you're repeating.