Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs — plus reading time, speaking time, and top keywords. Doubles as an essay word counter with Common App, UC, IELTS, and TOEFL word-limit presets. Updates live as you type. No account, no limits.
Ten metrics computed from one text input — no extra clicks needed.
Confirm posts hit minimum SEO length before publishing. Check keyword frequency against total word count to spot over-stuffing or under-coverage.
Stay within essay submission limits. Check that research papers and dissertations hit the required minimum before submitting.
Verify article length targets for different platforms and formats. Use the content type selector to check against specific channel requirements.
Track word count for landing pages, email newsletters, and ad copy. Speaking time helps estimate webinar and podcast script length.
Paste your blog post, essay, email, or any text into the input. Word count and all metrics update live with every character you type.
Check words, characters, sentences, reading time, and speaking time at a glance. All ten metrics update without clicking anything.
Click a content type button (Blog Post, Research Paper, etc.) to see a progress bar showing how close your word count is to the recommended range.
Scroll down to see your most frequent non-stop words with percentage. Use this to verify your primary keyword appears at the right density.
Word count is a baseline requirement for most types of writing. Academic assignments specify minimum word counts. SEO best practices recommend 1,500–2,500 words for competitive blog topics. This free word counter updates instantly as you type or paste, showing word count, character count with and without spaces, sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading and speaking time. Reading time uses 200 words per minute; speaking time uses 130 words per minute — both standard benchmarks used by content marketers and publishers.
The word counter also surfaces your top keywords by frequency, which is useful for checking whether your primary topic keyword appears often enough before publishing. A target keyword appearing fewer than 3 times in a 1,000-word article may signal insufficient topic coverage. Unique word count gives a quick sense of vocabulary range — a higher ratio of unique to total words generally indicates richer writing. All analysis runs entirely in your browser: nothing is sent to a server. After checking word count, verify keyword balance with the keyword density checker and readability with the readability checker.
Students use this page as a free essay word counter: select an essay target above and the progress bar tracks your word count against the exact limit. The Common App personal essay allows 250–650 words. UC Personal Insight Questions cap at 350 words each. IELTS Writing Task 2 requires a 250-word minimum, and TOEFL independent essays score best at 300+ words. A standard 5-paragraph essay runs 500–800 words. Application platforms count only the essay body — paste your essay without the prompt or title for an accurate count against the limit.
After confirming your essay word count, get structured scoring on thesis, evidence, and clarity from the essay feedback tool, and run the grammar checker before submitting.
Long-form content of 1,500–2,500 words consistently outperforms shorter posts on competitive keywords — not because word count is a ranking factor (Google has confirmed it isn't), but because longer posts tend to cover topics more comprehensively. A focused 800-word page that answers the query better than any other result will outrank a 3,000-word page that doesn't. Use this word counter to track length; use the E-E-A-T checker to verify quality signals; use the grammar checker to confirm accuracy before publishing.
Check length, then verify keywords, readability, and grammar before you publish.
Free, instant, no signup. Paste your text and get word count, reading time, and keyword frequency — live as you type.