Word & Character Counter
Free word counter — count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs. Get reading time, Flesch score, and keyword density. Runs entirely in browser.
The Word and Character Counter is a free, real-time writing analysis tool that gives you a complete breakdown of any text as you type — character count, word count, sentence count, paragraph count, estimated reading time, speaking time, Flesch Reading Ease score, and keyword density. It is built for writers, marketers, bloggers, students, and anyone who needs to hit a word limit or optimize content for readability.
Paste your text into the input and every metric updates instantly. The character counts show both the total count including spaces and the count without spaces, which is useful for platform limits that count differently (Twitter, LinkedIn, ad copy character limits). The word, sentence, and paragraph counts help you understand the structural density of your writing.
Reading time is calculated at 238 words per minute (the average adult reading speed for on-screen text) and speaking time at 130 words per minute, formatted as minutes and seconds. These estimates help you gauge whether a blog post, email, or presentation script fits within your time constraints.
The Flesch Reading Ease score measures how easy your text is to read based on average sentence length and syllable count per word. Scores range from 0 to 100 — higher is easier to read. A score of 60–70 is considered standard (readable by most adults), 70–80 is easy (plain English), and 90+ is very easy (suitable for age 11+). Content targeting a general business audience typically aims for 60–70. Legal and technical writing often scores lower, which can be a signal to simplify.
The keyword density table shows the top 10 most frequent words in your text, excluding common stop words (the, a, and, etc.), with their count and percentage of total words. This is useful for SEO copywriting, ensuring your primary keyword appears at an appropriate frequency without over-stuffing.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is reading time calculated?
Reading time is calculated by dividing the total word count by 238 words per minute, which is the average silent reading speed for adults reading on a screen. The result is displayed as minutes and seconds. For example, a 500-word article would estimate about 2 minutes 6 seconds of reading time. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, which is a typical conversational speaking pace.
- What is the Flesch Reading Ease score?
The Flesch Reading Ease score is a readability formula developed by Rudolf Flesch that measures how easy text is to read. It is calculated using average sentence length and average number of syllables per word. Scores range from 0 to 100: 90-100 is very easy (5th grade), 70-80 is easy (7th grade), 60-70 is standard (8th-9th grade), 50-60 is fairly difficult (10th-12th grade), and below 30 is very confusing (college graduate level). Most web content aims for 60-70.
- What is keyword density and how is it calculated?
Keyword density is the percentage of times a specific word appears in your text relative to the total word count. The tool calculates this for the top 10 most frequent content words (after removing common stop words like
- Does the tool save my text?
No. Your text is processed entirely in your browser and is never sent to any server. It is not stored, logged, or shared anywhere. When you close or refresh the tab, the text is gone.
- What character count do social platforms use?
Twitter/X counts characters including spaces but treats URLs as 23 characters regardless of actual length. LinkedIn posts allow up to 3,000 characters. Instagram captions allow up to 2,200 characters. Google Ads headlines allow 30 characters and descriptions 90 characters. Meta (Facebook) ad headlines allow 40 characters and primary text 125 characters before truncation. This tool counts raw characters; check platform-specific rules for URLs and special characters.