Word Counter
Paste or type your text — word count updates live along with characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
Top words
Word Counter — Count Words in Any Text Instantly
This word counter tool shows your word count live as you type or paste. Whether you need a word count for an essay, a blog post, a social media caption, or an SEO article — just paste your text and the count appears instantly. No signup, no limits, no ads.
Need to count characters too? The character counter shows total characters with and without spaces on the same page.
Why word count matters
- Essays & academic writing — most assignments have strict word limits. 500 words, 1,000 words, 2,500 words. Track yours here.
- Blog posts & SEO content — top-ranking articles average 1,500–2,500 words. Check your word count before publishing.
- Job applications & cover letters — many platforms cap cover letters at 250–400 words.
- Social media — LinkedIn articles, Medium posts and Twitter threads all benefit from knowing your word count.
- Freelance writing — clients pay by the word. Verify your delivery before invoicing.
- Novels & creative writing — track daily word targets, chapter lengths and manuscript milestones.
Word count targets by content type
- Tweet / X post — up to 280 characters (~50 words)
- Short essay — 500–800 words
- Cover letter — 250–400 words
- Blog post — 1,000–1,500 words
- Long-form SEO article — 1,500–2,500 words
- Short story — 1,000–7,500 words
- Novelette — 7,500–17,500 words
- Novella — 17,500–40,000 words
- Novel — 80,000–100,000 words
How this word counter works
Words are counted by splitting your text on whitespace. Consecutive spaces, tabs and line breaks count as a single separator. Punctuation attached to a word (e.g. "hello," or "world.") is counted as part of that word. This matches how most word processors — Microsoft Word, Google Docs — count words.
All counting runs entirely in your browser. Your text is never sent to any server. See also: character counter · FAQ.