Go to the word counter and paste or type your text into the box. Word count, character count, sentence count, paragraph count and reading time all update live as you type. No signup, no limits.
No. All counting happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to any server, never logged, and never stored anywhere other than your own device's memory while the page is open. You can verify this by opening your browser's network panel while typing — there are no outbound requests carrying your text.
Yes. FastWordCount is fully responsive and works on all devices — phones, tablets and desktops. The stats grid adapts to your screen size automatically.
Yes. Once the page has loaded, FastWordCount works without an internet connection. All the counting logic runs in your browser.
Reading time is estimated at 238 words per minute — the widely-cited average silent reading speed for adults in English. A 1,000-word article shows approximately 4 minutes. Technical content, poetry and non-English text may vary from this estimate.
Word count questions
Words are counted by splitting text on whitespace (spaces, tabs, line breaks). Consecutive spaces count as a single separator. Punctuation attached to a word — like "hello," or "world." — counts as part of that word. This matches how Microsoft Word and Google Docs count words.
High school essays are typically 500–800 words. Undergraduate essays range from 1,000–2,500 words depending on the assignment. Graduate-level essays and dissertations chapters are often 3,000–5,000 words. Always check your assignment brief for the specific word limit required.
A standard novel is typically 80,000–100,000 words. Genre fiction (fantasy, sci-fi) often runs longer at 100,000–120,000 words. Debut novels over 120,000 words are harder to place with publishers. Novellas are 17,500–40,000 words. Short stories are under 7,500 words.
Select all text on your Notion page with Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on Mac), then look at the floating toolbar. It shows word count and character count for the selection. For more detail, see the full guide: How to check word count in Notion.
In Google Docs, go to Tools → Word count (or press Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows, Cmd+Shift+C on Mac). This shows total words, characters with spaces, and characters without spaces. You can also enable "Display word count while typing" to see a live counter in the bottom-left corner.
Character count questions
Use the character counter. It shows both counts side by side: total characters including spaces, and total characters excluding spaces. Both update live as you type.
Character density is the ratio of non-space characters to total characters, expressed as a percentage. A text with many spaces (like a list) will have lower density than a dense paragraph. It's shown as a progress bar in FastWordCount.
Different tools handle edge cases differently — smart quotes vs straight quotes, em-dashes, non-breaking spaces, Unicode characters. FastWordCount counts every character in your text as-is, including punctuation and special characters.
Platform character limits
Google displays meta descriptions up to approximately 160 characters before truncating. Page titles are shown up to around 60 characters. Use the character counter to check both before publishing.
Twitter / X allows up to 280 characters per post. URLs are shortened to 23 characters regardless of their actual length. Images, videos and polls do not count toward the character limit.
Instagram captions can be up to 2,200 characters. However, only the first 125 characters are visible before the "more" button — so the most important content should appear at the start.
Google Ads responsive search ad headlines are limited to 30 characters each. Descriptions are limited to 90 characters each. Use the character counter to check your copy before entering it into Google Ads.
A standard SMS is 160 characters. Messages over 160 characters are split into multiple SMS segments (each 153 characters due to concatenation headers) and billed as multiple messages. If your message contains any non-GSM characters (like emoji), the limit drops to 70 characters per segment.
Word count for SEO
Top-ranking blog posts for competitive keywords typically contain 1,500–2,500 words. Comprehensive pillar content often reaches 3,000–5,000 words. Short informational posts can rank with 800–1,200 words for low-competition queries. Quality and relevance matter more than hitting a specific number.
Word count is not a direct Google ranking factor. However, longer content tends to cover topics more thoroughly, earn more backlinks, and satisfy search intent better — which indirectly improves rankings. Padding content to hit a word count target without adding value will not help rankings and may hurt them.
Ecommerce product pages typically perform well with 300–500 words of unique description copy. Category pages benefit from 300–800 words. The priority is answering buyer questions clearly rather than hitting a word count target.