Word counter

How words and characters are counted

A word is any group of letters or numbers between spaces or punctuation, so "e-mail" and "don't" count as one word each, and "₹500" counts as one. Characters include every letter, number, space and symbol. The "without spaces" count leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks. Hindi and other Indian languages are counted too.

Reading time assumes about 200 words a minute, a common average for reading on a screen. Speaking time assumes about 130 words a minute, a comfortable pace for a speech or a video script.

When a word count matters

• School and college work: essays and assignments often have a word limit. Most teachers allow about 10% either way, but check your instructions.
• Exams and applications: written answers, statements of purpose and cover letters often have limits in words or characters.
• Social media and ads: X (Twitter) posts allow 280 characters on a free account, Instagram captions 2,200, and SMS messages 160 characters for one standard English message.
• Websites: Google usually shows about 50 to 60 characters of a page title and about 150 to 160 of a description in search results, depending on screen size.

Most used words

The list shows the words you repeat most, leaving out common small words like "the" and "and". If one word appears far more than others, you may want to vary it. For a web page, it's a quick check that the topic is clear, without stuffing the same word in again and again.

Questions