Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with reading time, speaking time and a Flesch readability score. Everything runs in your browser.
A word counter reports the number of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in a piece of text, plus its estimated reading time. Everything is counted in your browser as you type, so nothing you paste is uploaded or stored.
Runs entirely in your browser · no signup · nothing is uploaded · updated 2026-08-29
- Characters without spaces
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Speaking time
- 1 min
- Flesch reading ease
- -
How to use it
- 1.Paste or type your text.
- 2.Counts update as you type - nothing is uploaded.
- 3.Check the readability score before you publish.
Embed this word counter on your site
Free to use on any blog, class page or wiki. Paste the snippet and keep the credit line under it.
<iframe src="https://rankcert.com/embed/word-counter" title="Word Counter" width="100%" height="600" style="border:0;border-radius:12px" loading="lazy"></iframe> <p style="font-size:13px">Free <a href="https://rankcert.com/tools/word-counter">word counter</a> by RankCert</p>
Frequently asked questions
How is reading time calculated?
At 225 words per minute, the average adult silent reading speed for non-technical prose. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, the usual presentation pace.
Does my text get stored?
No. Everything is counted in JavaScript on this page. There is no network request, which is why it keeps working offline.
How long should a blog post be?
Long enough to answer the question completely. In practice, pages ranking for competitive terms tend to run 1,200 to 2,000 words - not because length ranks, but because complete answers are long.
What counts as a word?
Any run of non-whitespace characters. Hyphenated compounds count as one, which matches how most editors and word processors count.
How many words is a typical page of writing?
About 250 double-spaced or 500 single-spaced in 12pt. A 2,000-word article is roughly eight double-spaced pages.
Does character count include spaces?
Both figures are shown. Social platforms count characters with spaces - X allows 280, a meta description should stay under about 160.
How many words should an essay or article be?
Whatever fully answers the question. For search, the pages ranking for a query are the honest benchmark: match their depth rather than a word target.
Can I count words offline?
Yes - once this page has loaded it needs no network. The counting runs entirely in JavaScript on your device.
The guide behind this tool
Character limits that actually matter in 2026
The real limits for title tags, meta descriptions, social posts and SMS - plus why Google measures pixels, not characters, and why emoji count as more than one.
3 min read
Keyword density is not a target: what to check instead
Why keyword density stopped being a ranking factor, what percentage reads as stuffing to a human, and the on-page placement that still matters.
3 min read
Readability and SEO: what a Flesch score really tells you
How Flesch Reading Ease is calculated, what score to aim for, whether readability affects rankings, and the one edit that improves it fastest.
3 min read
Tools that pair with this one
Reading Time Calculator
Estimate how long your article takes to read and to speak aloud, so you can put an honest number at the top of the page.
Text & content
Keyword Density Checker
See which words your content actually repeats and at what percentage, with stop words excluded, so you can spot keyword stuffing before publishing.
Text & content
Readability Checker
Score your writing on Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, SMOG and Coleman-Liau at once, and see which one your text fails.
Text & content
Flesch Reading Ease Calculator
Score any text on the Flesch Reading Ease scale from 0 to 100, see the audience it reads for, and get the sentence length and syllable numbers behind the score.
Text & content