Word Counter & Reading Time Calculator
Count words, characters, and sentences as you type. See how long a piece takes to read or read aloud, and check which words you're leaning on too hard.
Keyword density
The five words you repeat most, common words like "the" and "and" excluded.
Start typing to see your most-used words.
How reading time is calculated
Most adults read silently at around 200–250 words per minute, depending on the material and how closely they're reading it. This tool uses 225 words per minute as a baseline for reading time, and about 130 words per minute for speaking time, which is closer to a natural pace for narration or a presentation. Treat both as a starting point — dense technical writing reads slower, and a casual blog post reads faster.
Word count guidelines by format
There's no universal right answer, but these ranges are a reasonable starting point if you're not sure how long something should be.
| Format | Typical word count |
|---|---|
| Tweet / X post | 10–40 words |
| Social media caption | 40–150 words |
| 50–200 words | |
| Cover letter | 250–400 words |
| College application essay | 500–650 words |
| Blog post | 600–2,000 words |
| SEO-focused article | 1,500–2,500 words |
| Short story | 1,000–7,500 words |
| Novella | 20,000–50,000 words |
| Novel | 70,000–100,000 words |
What keyword density tells you
Keyword density is the percentage of times a word appears compared to your total word count. Writers use it to catch words they lean on too hard — "really" six times in 300 words reads differently than "really" once. If you're optimizing for search, treat density as a sanity check rather than a target: search engines weigh relevance and context far more than how many times a term repeats, and stuffing a page with a phrase tends to hurt more than help.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this word counter actually free?
- Yes — fully free, with no sign-up, account, or usage limit.
- Does the character count include spaces?
- Both are shown — characters with spaces and characters without — so you can use whichever a platform or style guide asks for.
- Is my text saved or sent to a server?
- No. Everything is calculated in your browser as you type. Nothing is uploaded, logged, or stored.
- How is the sentence count calculated?
- Sentences are counted by terminal punctuation — periods, question marks, and exclamation points — so unusual abbreviations or ellipses can occasionally shift the number by one or two.
- Does this work on my phone?
- Yes, the page is fully responsive and works the same on mobile, tablet, and desktop.