Word & Character Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with reading and speaking time estimates.
Inputs
Stays on your device — this field is never added to a shared link.
238 wpm is the average adult silent-reading rate for English prose.
130-150 wpm is a comfortable presentation pace.
Words
24
Characters (with spaces)
138
Characters (no spaces)
115
Sentences
2
Paragraphs
1
Lines
1
Reading Time
6m
Speaking Time
10m
Average Word Length
4.79chars
Average Sentence Length
12.00words
Step by step
Words
text split on runs of whitespace
= 24 words
Characters
138 with spaces, 115 without
= 138 characters
Reading time
24 words ÷ 238 wpm × 60
= 6 seconds
Speaking time
24 words ÷ 140 wpm × 60
= 10 seconds
How it works
Word count is the number of whitespace-separated tokens, which is the same convention word processors and most publishing style guides use. Reading and speaking times divide that count by a words-per-minute rate: around 238 wpm for adult silent reading of English prose, and 130-150 wpm for a comfortable spoken delivery. Sentence and paragraph counts are heuristics — sentences are detected at runs of . ! ? followed by whitespace or end of text, and paragraphs at blank lines — so abbreviations and decimal numbers can shift the sentence count slightly. Average word and sentence length are useful readability proxies: long sentences paired with long words are the usual cause of dense, hard-to-scan copy.
Formulas
Reading time
reading_minutes = word_count / reading_wpm
- W
- Word count
- R
- Reading speed in words per minute
Speaking time
speaking_minutes = word_count / speaking_wpm
- W
- Word count
- S
- Speaking speed in words per minute
Average sentence length
avg_sentence_length = word_count / sentence_count
- W
- Word count
- sentence_count
- Number of detected sentences
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the character count include spaces and line breaks?
Both figures are shown. The 'with spaces' count is the raw string length including spaces and newlines, which is the limit most platforms enforce; the 'no spaces' count strips all whitespace.
Why does my sentence count look slightly off?
Sentence detection is a heuristic based on . ! ? followed by whitespace. Abbreviations such as 'e.g.' and decimal numbers can create false boundaries, and a sentence ending without punctuation will be merged with the next one.
What reading speed should I use?
238 words per minute is the meta-analysis average for adult silent reading of English non-fiction. Use 150-180 for technical or unfamiliar material and 300+ for skimming familiar content.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The counting runs entirely in your browser, and the text field is marked ephemeral so it is deliberately excluded from shareable result links.