Word Counter

You need a quick, private count before a draft goes out

Briefs come with length ranges, meta fields have limits, and editors ask how long an article takes to read. This counter gives you the basic numbers the moment you paste: total words, total characters, sentences, paragraphs, and two time estimates. Nothing is uploaded, which makes it safe for unpublished client copy.

Step by step

1. Paste or type your text into the large box labeled Paste your content.
2. Watch the four tiles fill in. They recalculate on every change, so there is nothing to click.
3. Look under the tiles for Reading Time (at 200 words a minute) and Speaking Time (at 150 words a minute). Both round up to the next whole minute, so even one word shows 1 min.
4. Trim or expand the draft right in the box and watch the totals move.

What to watch for

The counting rules are deliberately basic. A word is any run of characters between whitespace, so numbers, URLs and stray symbols each count as one. The character total includes every space and line break; there is no separate figure without spaces.

Sentence detection only looks for periods, question marks and exclamation points. Text with abbreviations, version numbers, or domain names will show more sentences than it really has, and a closing line with no punctuation still counts as one. Paragraph detection needs an empty line between blocks. Text pasted from some word processors uses single line breaks, and then the tool reports one large paragraph.

If you paste raw HTML or Markdown, the markup is counted as words. Strip it first for a count that reflects what readers see.

Questions people ask

How many words should an SEO article have?

There is no fixed number. Google's helpful content guidance says plainly that it has no preferred word count. Cover the topic well for the searcher, then use this count to check you are within your brief.

Why does my word processor show a slightly different number?

Editors treat hyphens, dashes, footnotes and hidden text in their own ways. Small differences are normal; large ones usually mean markup or pasted formatting is being counted here.

Is the reading time accurate?

It is an estimate using fixed rates. Real reading speed depends on the reader and the material, and dense technical text takes longer than the number suggests.

Further reading: Long-Form vs Short-Form Content Decisions and Readability.

The same tool is also published on the static mirror at seoprocheck.github.io, and the rest of the set is on the free tools page.