Free Word Counter

Text is split on whitespace, so anything separated by a space, tab or line break counts as one word. A hyphenated term like state-of-the-art counts once, and a number counts as a word. This matches how most editors and word processors count.

No. The counting runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript, so nothing is sent to a server, stored or logged. You can safely paste unpublished drafts, client work or anything confidential.

Words divided by 225 per minute, the commonly cited average for adult silent reading of general text. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, closer to a measured presentation pace. Technical material reads slower than both.

Different tools treat edge cases differently: numbers, hyphenated compounds, symbols standing alone and text inside footnotes are all handled inconsistently. Differences of a fraction of a percent on a long document are normal and not worth chasing.

Match what already ranks for your target query rather than any fixed number. In practice comprehensive guides often land between 1,500 and 2,500 words, but a 700 word post that answers the question completely beats 2,000 words of padding.

Length correlates with rankings but does not cause them. Longer pages tend to cover more subtopics and earn more links, which is what actually helps. Adding words to reach a target does nothing except make the page worse.

Meta descriptions around 155 characters, title tags near 60, X posts 280, and Instagram captions 2,200. Character count without spaces is often what matters for platforms with strict database limits.

Paste only that section. The counter updates as you type, so you can trim or expand a paragraph and watch the number move without needing to recount the whole document each time.

Yes for any language that separates words with spaces, including accented Latin scripts, Cyrillic and Greek. Languages written without spaces, such as Chinese and Japanese, will not produce a meaningful word count, though character counts remain accurate.

Roughly 500 words per double-spaced page and 250 per single-spaced page in a standard 12 point font, so 2,000 words is about four double-spaced pages. Margins, font and spacing all shift this, so treat it as an estimate.