Word & character counter

What it does

A word counter gives you every count you need while writing: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, unique words, average word length and the reading and speaking time. It also checks the text against three limits people hit most often, the 155-character meta description, the 280-character X post and the 3,000-character LinkedIn post. Everything updates as you type, nothing leaves the browser, and a summary can be copied in one click.

How to use it

1. Paste or type the text into the box. Formatting is ignored, so text copied from a document works.
2. Read the four headline stats: words, characters, reading time and sentences.
3. Check the details table for paragraphs, average word length, the longest word and the three limit checks.
4. Edit until the counts match the brief, then copy the summary if you need to report it.

How to read the result

The sample text has 78 words and 445 characters, which the reading time stat turns into about 20 seconds at 230 words per minute. The sentence stat shows 6 sentences, with the hint giving 13.0 words per sentence, which is comfortable for web copy; above 20 words per sentence, most readers slow down.

The unique word figure under Words tells you about repetition. 78 words with 57 unique is normal. A 500-word page with only 150 unique words is probably repeating itself.

In the details table, the limit rows say "Fits" or show how far over you are. Text of 445 characters is 290 over the meta description limit and 165 over an X post, but fits a LinkedIn post with room to spare. Use those rows when writing snippets, ad copy and social posts rather than switching tools.

For sentence length and reading grade in more depth, use the readability checker. Page copy that is checked for length and clarity is part of our technical SEO service.