Text Tools
Word Counter
Word Counter is part of Toolspire and is ready as soon as this page loads. Paste or type your text to see live word and character counts, reading and speaking time, keyword density, readability scores and social-media limits — straight away and privately.
On this page
What you can do here
Live counts
Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines update with every keystroke — even for book-length text.
Reading and speaking time
See how long your text takes to read silently and to deliver as a speech or video script.
Keyword density
Find your most-used words and 2–3 word phrases, with common words filtered out, to spot repetition and check SEO focus.
Readability scores
Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level tell you how easy your English text is to read, and for whom.
Platform limits
Progress bars for X posts, SEO titles, meta descriptions, SMS, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn show what fits and what is over.
Word goal
Set a target such as 1,500 words for an essay or article and watch the progress bar fill as you write.
Case converter and file tools
Switch to UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case or Sentence case, open a .txt or .md file, copy, or download your text — with one-step undo.
Private autosave
Your draft is kept in this browser so a refresh never loses work. Turn it off with one switch; nothing is sent anywhere either way.
The sequence
How to count words in your text
- 1
Add your text
Type in the box, paste text from any document, or click Open file to load a .txt or .md file.
- 2
Read the live counts
Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and speaking time update straight away at the top.
- 3
Dig deeper
Check Details for averages and page estimates, then use the tabs for keyword density, character limits and readability.
- 4
Set a goal or export
Enter a word goal to track progress, change the case if needed, then copy or download the finished text.
Worth knowing
- Word Counter on Toolspire: counts words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, lines and unique words as you type.
- Hyphenated words and contractions such as “well-known” and “don’t” count as one word, the same as Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
- Unicode-aware: Hindi and other Indic scripts, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and emoji are counted correctly.
- Reading time assumes 238 words per minute and speaking time 150 words per minute.
- Shows keyword density for single words and 2–3 word phrases, with optional stop-word filtering.
- Calculates Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level for English text.
- Checks text against limits for X posts (280), SEO titles (60), meta descriptions (160), Instagram captions (2,200) and more.
- Text is analysed in this tab and not sent to us. An optional draft autosave uses this browser’s local storage only.
How words and characters are counted
A word is any run of characters between spaces that contains at least one letter or number. That means “well-known”, “don’t”, “COVID-19” and “2026” each count as one word, while a stray dash or ampersand does not — the same rules Microsoft Word and Google Docs use, so your count matches what an editor or teacher will see.
Languages written without spaces between words — Chinese, Japanese and Thai — are split into words with the Unicode word-segmentation rules built into your browser. Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and other Indic scripts, which do use spaces, are counted like English.
Characters are counted the way you see them: an emoji with a skin tone, a flag, or a Devanagari conjunct is one character, even though it is stored as several code points. The Details panel also shows the size in bytes (UTF-8), which matters for databases and some SMS gateways.
Paragraphs are counted as non-empty lines, as in Microsoft Word. Sentences end at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or the Devanagari danda (।).
How many pages is 1,000 words?
With a 12-point font such as Times New Roman or Arial and 1-inch margins, a single-spaced page holds about 500 words and a double-spaced page about 250. Headings, short paragraphs and larger fonts reduce that.
| Words | Single-spaced pages | Double-spaced pages | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | 0.5 | 1 | about 1 minute |
| 500 | 1 | 2 | about 2 minutes |
| 1,000 | 2 | 4 | about 4 minutes |
| 1,500 | 3 | 6 | about 6 minutes |
| 2,000 | 4 | 8 | about 8 minutes |
| 5,000 | 10 | 20 | about 21 minutes |
How reading time and speaking time are calculated
Reading time uses 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed for adults reading non-fiction English found in a 2019 review of 190 studies (Brysbaert). Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for presentations, podcasts and video voice-overs.
Technical material is read more slowly and fiction faster, so treat both figures as estimates. For a timed speech, rehearse aloud once and adjust.
Character limits cheat sheet
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 characters | Standard accounts; every link counts as 23 |
| SEO title tag | ~60 characters | Google truncates by pixel width, roughly 50–60 characters |
| Meta description | ~160 characters | Longer text is usually cut off in results |
| SMS message | 160 characters | Drops to 70 when the text contains emoji or non-Latin letters |
| YouTube title | 100 characters | About 70 are visible in search results |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters | Only the first lines show before “more” |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters | Only the first few lines show before “see more” |
Understanding readability scores
The Flesch Reading Ease score rates text from about 0 to 100 using average sentence length and average syllables per word: the higher the score, the easier the text. The Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level turns the same inputs into a US school grade.
| Score | Difficulty | Typical reader |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | Very easy | 5th grade (age 10–11) |
| 70–89 | Easy to fairly easy | 6th–7th grade |
| 60–69 | Plain English | 8th–9th grade (age 13–15) |
| 50–59 | Fairly difficult | 10th–12th grade |
| 30–49 | Difficult | College level |
| 0–29 | Very difficult | College graduate |
Keyword density and SEO
Keyword density is how often a word or phrase appears as a share of all words. Search engines do not reward a particular percentage, and repeating a phrase unnaturally can hurt. Use the table to spot accidental repetition and to confirm your main topic is clearly present — then write for readers first.
FAQ
Questions about Word Counter
Where does Word Counter run?
Is this word counter free and private?
Does it count hyphenated words and contractions as one word?
Are spaces counted as characters?
How is reading time calculated?
How many words are on one page?
Does it work with Hindi and other languages?
What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?
What is the ideal keyword density for SEO?
Is my text saved?
How many characters are allowed in a tweet or a meta description?
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