Word Counter

Count Words and Characters Online. Private and Instant

This word counter counts words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and lines, estimates reading and speaking time, and lists your most frequent keywords with their density. VaultTools runs the analysis in Rust compiled to WebAssembly inside your browser, so your text is never sent to a server.

How to count words

1. Paste your text into the input box (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V) or start typing.
2. Every statistic updates as you type. There is no button to press.
3. Check the character limits panel to see how many characters you have left for an SMS, an X post, an SEO title, a meta description, an Instagram caption or a LinkedIn post. Anything over the limit turns red.
4. Edit the text and watch the counts change instantly. Use Clear to start over.

What the word counter shows

• Words: every unit separated by spaces, tabs or line breaks. Double spaces never create extra words.
• Characters: every character, including spaces, punctuation and line breaks.
• Characters without spaces: the same count with spaces, tabs and line breaks removed.
• Sentences: detected at . ! ? or … followed by a space or the end of the text. Decimals like 3.5 do not end a sentence, "..." or "?!" count only once, and a final sentence without punctuation still counts.
• Paragraphs and lines: paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line, lines is the number of lines of text.
• Reading and speaking time: based on 200 words per minute for silent reading and 130 words per minute for speaking aloud.
• Unique words and average word length: how many different words you use (case-insensitive) and the average number of letters per word.
• Top 10 keywords: your most frequent words with count and density. Common words such as "the", "and" or "is" (plus their French and German equivalents) are ignored.

What counts as a word?

The counter splits text on whitespace only. That gives predictable rules worth knowing when you are writing to a word limit:

• Hyphenated words: "well-known" or "state-of-the-art" count as one word because they contain no space.
• Numbers: "2026", "3.5" and "1,800" each count as one word. "100 %" is two words, "100%" is one.
• Contractions and abbreviations: "don't" is one word, "e.g." is one word, "U. S." with a space is two.
• URLs and email addresses: a link without spaces is a single word, however long it is.
• Stand-alone symbols: a dash surrounded by spaces, or a lone emoji, also counts as a word.

Character counts: with or without spaces

Many limits are set in characters rather than words, and whether spaces count changes the number noticeably. If a brief does not say, ask.

• Essays and applications: university assignments, scholarship essays and online application forms often cap text fields at a fixed number of words or characters. Count before you paste so nothing gets cut off.
• SEO title and meta description: Google truncates by pixel width, not by characters. About 60 characters for a title and 160 for a meta description are common guidelines, and the tool checks both live.
• Social media: X allows 280 characters per post on a standard account, Instagram 2,200 characters per caption, LinkedIn 3,000 characters per post, and a classic SMS holds 160 characters.

A note on emoji: the counter counts Unicode characters. A simple emoji like 👍 is one character, while combined emoji (flags, families, skin tones) are made of several. Some platforms apply their own rules, for example X counts every link as 23 characters, so give tight posts a final check on the platform itself.

Reading time and speaking time

Reading time uses 200 words per minute, a common figure for silent reading of non-fiction. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a calm presentation pace. A 650-word script takes about 5 minutes to deliver, so a 10-minute talk needs roughly 1,300 words. Your own pace will vary with pauses and slides, so rehearse once with a timer and treat the estimate as a starting point.

Keyword density

The keyword table lists your ten most frequent content words, how often each appears, and its share of all words. If "budget" appears 10 times in a 500-word text, its density is 2.0%. Search engines do not reward a target percentage. The table is most useful for spotting accidental repetition: if one word dominates the list, consider a synonym. Words are grouped regardless of capitalization, and numbers and one-letter words are left out.

Why Word or Google Docs may show a different count

Small differences against Microsoft Word, Google Docs or Pages come from different counting rules. Word processors treat dashes, slashes, hyphens and special characters in their own ways. Word can include or exclude footnotes, endnotes and text boxes, and copied text often leaves those out entirely, along with headers, footers and captions. For sentences, abbreviations such as "Dr." or "approx." followed by a space are counted as sentence ends here. If a limit is strict, check the final count in the software your teacher, editor or client uses.

Why count words in your browser?

Text you need to count is often text nobody else should see yet: unpublished manuscripts, theses before submission, cover letters, embargoed press releases or confidential contracts. Many online counters send your text to a server for processing. Here the counting happens inside your browser tab, with no network request carrying your content, nothing stored and no account. You can verify it: open your browser's developer tools and watch the Network tab while you type, or disconnect from the internet after the page loads. The counter keeps working offline.

Word counter FAQ

How many words are on a page?

It depends on font, font size, line spacing and margins. As a rough guide, a page of 12-point text holds around 250 to 300 words double-spaced and around 500 single-spaced. Because layouts vary so much, a word or character count is always more reliable than a page count.

Do numbers count as words?

Yes. Any number separated by spaces counts as one word, such as "2026" or "3.5". The keyword table hides numbers, since they rarely matter for keyword density.

Are hyphenated words counted as one word?

Yes. "Well-known" or "e-mail" count as one word because the counter only splits on spaces, tabs and line breaks. A dash with spaces on both sides counts as a separate word.

Do spaces count as characters?

In the Characters count, yes. In Characters without spaces, no. Both numbers are shown side by side so you can read off whichever your limit requires. Line breaks are treated like spaces.

How long does it take to read 1,000 words?

About 5 minutes of silent reading at 200 words per minute, and just under 8 minutes spoken aloud at 130 words per minute. The tool calculates both for your text automatically.

Is the word counter free, and is there a limit?

It is free, needs no sign-up and has no length limit. The only constraint is your device's memory.

Is my text stored or uploaded?

No. Your text is processed only in your browser and is never transmitted. Close the tab and it is gone, which makes the tool suitable for confidential documents and unpublished work.

More text tools: compare two drafts with the text diff tool, or see how journalists use VaultTools to work with column limits.