orbitHow to count words
Type or paste your text into the box. The counts update instantly with every keystroke: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and an estimated reading time. Use Copy to copy the statistics, for example into a report or an email to your editor.
How the counting works
- Words are groups of characters separated by spaces or line breaks. “Well-known” counts as one word, “e-mail address” as two.
- Characters include letters, digits, punctuation, spaces and line breaks. Emoji and letters with accents count as one character each.
- Characters without spaces ignore spaces, tabs and line breaks, which is how some publishers and translators charge.
- Sentences end with a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis.
- Paragraphs are separated by an empty line.
- Reading time assumes an average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute.
Typical length limits
- Search result titles are often shortened after about 60 characters, and descriptions after about 155.
- A post on X (Twitter) allows 280 characters for standard accounts.
- College application essays are commonly limited to 650 words.
- A typical blog post is 800–2,000 words, a news article 400–800.
These limits are set by each platform and institution and can change, so always check the current rules.
Private writing
Many word counters send your text to their server. Here the counting happens in your browser and nothing you type is uploaded or stored, so you can safely check unpublished articles, essays, business plans and personal letters.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my word processor show a slightly different number?
Programs treat hyphens, dashes, numbers and special characters slightly differently. Differences of a few words in a long text are normal.
Does it work for languages other than English?
Yes, for all languages that separate words with spaces. Languages written without spaces, such as Chinese or Japanese, are better measured by character count.