How the counter works
Everything is counted in your browser each time the text changes. Nothing is sent to a server.
- Words are the pieces of text between spaces or line breaks that hold at least one letter or number. Hyphenated words and contractions count once. Chinese characters and Japanese kana count one word each.
- Characters are counted the way you see them, so an emoji is one character. Spaces and line breaks count in the first figure and are left out of the second.
- Sentences end at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a space, or at the end of a line. Abbreviations such as “Dr.” or “e.g.” followed by a space are counted as sentence ends, so the count can run slightly high.
- Paragraphs are the lines that hold text. Blank lines between them are ignored.
Reading and speaking time
The times use the averages from Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 review, “How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate” (Journal of Memory and Language 109, 104047), which pooled 190 studies of silent reading and 77 of reading aloud.
Reading time = words ÷ 238 words per minute (silent reading, non-fiction)
Speaking time = words ÷ 183 words per minute (reading aloud)
The review found that most adults read non-fiction silently at between 175 and 300 words per minute, so your own time can be well above or below the average.
Worked example
A 476-word cover letter: 476 ÷ 238 = 2.0 minutes to read, and 476 ÷ 183 = 2.6 minutes, or 2 minutes 36 seconds, to read aloud.
Most used words
The list ignores capital letters and leaves out about 80 common words (the, and, of, to and similar), numbers and single letters, so the words you lean on stand out. It is handy for spotting a word you have repeated too often in an essay or a cover letter.
Questions people ask
How is the reading time worked out?
The word count is divided by 238 words per minute, the average silent reading rate for English non-fiction found by Marc Brysbaert in a 2019 review of 190 studies with 18,573 adult readers (Journal of Memory and Language, volume 109). The same review found 260 words per minute for fiction, so a novel chapter reads a little faster than the estimate shown here.
How is the speaking time worked out?
The word count is divided by 183 words per minute, the average rate for reading a text aloud in the same 2019 Brysbaert review (77 studies, 5,965 people). Use it as a guide for a speech or presentation; pauses, slides and questions add time.
What counts as a word?
Anything between spaces or line breaks that contains a letter or a number. A hyphenated word such as well-known is one word, a contraction such as don’t is one word, and a number such as 3.50 or a date such as 10/15/2026 is one word. A dash or an emoji on its own between spaces is not a word. Chinese and Japanese text is written without spaces, so each Chinese character and each kana counts as one word.
How are characters counted?
Each character as you see it counts once, including spaces, punctuation and line breaks. An emoji, a flag or an accented letter counts as one character even when it is stored as several code points. The second figure leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks.
How long does a 1,000-word essay take to read or say?
About 4 minutes 12 seconds to read silently at 238 words per minute, and about 5 minutes 28 seconds to read aloud at 183 words per minute.
Is my text uploaded or saved?
No. The counting runs in your browser tab. The text is not sent anywhere and is not stored, so it is gone when you close or reload the page.