Word & Character Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and estimate reading time.
Your Text
Words
0
Characters
0
Characters (no spaces)
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
0
Reading Time
< 1 min
How this calculator works
Word count splits your text on whitespace, so hyphenated-words and numbers count as one word each. Sentences are detected by counting groups of text ending in a period, exclamation mark or question mark, and paragraphs are counted by blank lines — the same conventions most word processors use.
A known limitation of sentence counting
Because sentence detection looks for periods, exclamation marks and question marks, abbreviations like "Dr.", "e.g." or "U.S." get counted as sentence endings too, which can slightly inflate the sentence count in text with a lot of abbreviations. Word, character and paragraph counts aren't affected by this — it's specific to sentence detection.
Reading time vs. speaking time
Reading time assumes roughly 200 words per minute, the commonly cited average adult silent reading speed — treat it as a ballpark for blog posts or essays, not a precise measurement for your specific readers. If you're timing a speech or presentation instead, speaking pace is usually slower, around 130-150 words per minute, so a script that reads in 5 minutes silently often takes 7 minutes or more to actually deliver aloud.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is reading time estimated?
Reading time assumes roughly 200 words per minute, a commonly cited average adult silent reading speed — treat it as a ballpark, not a precise figure for every reader.
How are sentences and paragraphs counted?
Sentences are counted by groups of text ending in a period, exclamation mark or question mark. Paragraphs are counted by blank lines — the same conventions most word processors use.
Does this tool count characters with or without spaces?
Both — the results show total characters including spaces, and a separate count excluding spaces, alongside the word, sentence and paragraph counts.
Does the sentence count get confused by abbreviations?
Yes, slightly — since sentence detection looks for periods, exclamation marks and question marks, abbreviations like "Dr.", "e.g." or "U.S." get counted as sentence endings too, which can slightly inflate the sentence count in text with a lot of abbreviations. Word and character counts aren't affected.
What's a typical speaking pace for presentations?
Roughly 130-150 words per minute, noticeably slower than the ~200 wpm used for silent reading time. A script that reads in 5 minutes silently often takes 7 minutes or more to actually deliver aloud.