I need to count words or characters
Hitting an essay minimum, a tweet limit or a 160-character meta description? Get an instant, private count.
To count words or characters, paste your text into a counter: it instantly shows the word count, character count (with and without spaces), and often sentences and reading time. Our Word Counter and Character Counter run in your browser, so nothing is uploaded. Handy for essay limits, meta descriptions, social posts and application fields.
4 tools for this
Each one is free, private and runs in your browser. No sign-up, no watermark.
Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time live as you type or paste, with a keyword breakdown and platform length limits. 100% in your browser.
Character Counter
Count characters with and without spaces, plus words, bytes and lines, and check your text live against Twitter/X, meta title, meta description and SMS limits, 100% in your browser.
Reading Time Calculator
Paste any text to estimate reading time at an adjustable words-per-minute pace, with live word, sentence, paragraph and character stats, 100% in your browser.
Meta Description Generator
Write a click-worthy SEO meta description with a live character + pixel meter, a real Google snippet preview and ready-to-edit templates, copy the tag, 100% in your browser.
How to fix it
Follow these steps and you'll have it sorted in a couple of minutes.
- 1
Open the Word Counter
Paste or type your text: it's counted live in your browser, never uploaded.
- 2
Read the counts
See words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences and estimated reading time update as you edit.
- 3
Check against your limit
Compare to your target: an essay minimum, a 280-character post, or a ~160-character meta description.
- 4
Trim or expand
Edit in place until you hit the count you need. The totals update instantly.
- Counting characters with spaces when a field counts without them (or vice versa). Check which the limit uses.
- Forgetting that some platforms count links or emoji specially, so the on-screen count can differ slightly.
- Writing to a raw word count and ignoring readability. Hitting a number isn't the same as writing well.
Frequently asked questions
More problems we solve
Ran into one of these too? Here's the fix.
- I want to check my page's SEO and meta tagsSee your page the way Google and social platforms do, then fix the missing title, description or heading structure.
- My site has no meta tags or preview when sharedA blank preview costs you clicks. Add the right tags so Google and social show a proper title, description and image.
- I want rich results / structured data for my pagesRich results earn more clicks. Add the right Schema.org markup so your pages qualify for enhanced listings.
Keep exploring
Problems we solve
Definitions
From the blog
Common tasks
Ready? Start with Word Counter
Free, private and instant: everything runs in your browser.