Word Counter: Count Words, Characters and Sentences

The WoowTools Word Counter gives you live statistics for any text you type or paste. The main panel shows the four numbers most people need: words, characters, sentences and paragraphs: and they update on every keystroke, so you can watch an essay or product description grow toward its target without pressing a button.

As soon as there is text in the box, a detailed analysis appears underneath: characters without spaces, the number of non-empty lines, the average word length (in characters), the average sentence length (in words), an estimated reading time at 225 words per minute and an estimated speaking time at 130 words per minute. Both times are rounded up to the next full minute and shown in hours and minutes for long documents.

How to count words online

1. Type directly in the text area, or click Paste to pull in whatever is on your clipboard (your browser may ask for permission the first time).
2. Read the word, character, sentence and paragraph totals in the Statistics panel on the right.
3. Scroll to Detailed Analysis and Time Estimates for reading time, speaking time and averages.
4. Edit your text in place: every figure recalculates instantly. Use Copy to take the edited text back to your document, or Clear to start over.

Not sure how it behaves? With an empty box you can load a Short Paragraph or a Medium Article sample to see all the statistics in action.

How the counts work

• Words are sequences separated by spaces, tabs or line breaks, so hyphenated terms like "well-known" count as one word.
• Sentences end at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. Abbreviations such as "e.g." or "Dr." add extra sentences, so treat that figure as an estimate.
• Paragraphs are blocks separated by at least one empty line; lines count every non-empty line.
• For languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese or Japanese, rely on the character count rather than the word count.

Practical uses

• Essays and applications: stay inside the 250-, 500- or 650-word limits that schools and scholarship forms enforce.
• Blog posts and articles: check length before publishing and use the reading time for a "5 min read" label.
• Speeches and presentations: the 130 wpm speaking estimate tells you whether a talk fits its slot. A three-minute pitch lands around 390 words.
• Readable writing: an average sentence length above roughly 20 to 25 words is a hint to split long sentences.

Need to fix the text as well as measure it? Use the case converter to change capitalisation, then come back to confirm the final count.

Why use this word counter

Everything is calculated by JavaScript in your browser tab. Your text is not uploaded, stored or logged, which matters when you are checking an unpublished manuscript, a client document or a job application. There is no account, no limit on the number of checks and no watermark: open the page, paste and read the numbers.