Word Counter

About this tool

The word counter tallies the words, characters, sentences and lines in any block of text as you type, so you always know exactly how much you've written without leaving the page or pressing a button.

It's most useful when you're writing to a limit. Essays and assignments often specify a word count; social posts cap the characters you can publish; and search engines only show roughly the first 155–160 characters of a meta description, so trimming to fit changes how your page appears in results. Application forms, cover letters, product descriptions and abstracts all tend to come with a ceiling too, and a live count takes the guesswork out of hitting it.

The character total counts everything, including spaces, because that's how most platforms measure length — an SMS segment, a Twitter/X post and a meta description all treat a space as a character. The sentence count splits on full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, which gives a quick read on pacing: lots of very long sentences can be a sign to break things up. The line count reflects hard line breaks, which is handy when a form limits the number of lines rather than words.

Everything runs in your browser and updates instantly, so your text is never uploaded or stored. That makes it safe for drafts, private notes, confidential documents or anything you'd rather not send to a server just to count.

Frequently asked questions

How is a word counted?

A word is any run of non-whitespace characters. Text separated by spaces, tabs or line breaks is split into words, and empty gaps are ignored — so double spaces or trailing spaces won't inflate the total.

Does it count spaces as characters?

Yes. The character total includes spaces and punctuation, because that matches how SMS, social platforms and meta-description limits measure length. If you need the count without spaces, remove them first and the figure will update.

What counts as a sentence?

The tool ends a sentence at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. Abbreviations like "e.g." can therefore read as sentence ends, so treat the sentence figure as a close estimate rather than a strict count.

Why does the word count differ from Microsoft Word?

Different tools apply slightly different rules to hyphenated words, numbers and symbols, so small differences are normal. For a hard limit, it's safest to leave a little headroom rather than sit exactly on the number.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. The counting happens entirely in your browser and nothing is uploaded or saved, so it's fine to paste in sensitive or unpublished text.

Further reading