What counts as a word here
A word is a run of letters or digits, kept whole across apostrophes, hyphens and internal periods. In practice that means:
don'tis one word, whether you typed a straight or a curly apostrophe.state-of-the-artis one word, not four.3.14and1,000,000are one word each.U.S.A.is one word.- A link or an email address is one word, not a handful of fragments.
- A stray dash, ampersand or bullet on its own is not a word.
Word counts people are usually chasing
If you are writing to a target, these are the lengths that come up most often:
- College application essay — 500 to 650 words.
- Blog post that ranks — 1,000 to 2,000 words, though usefulness beats length.
- Abstract — 150 to 250 words.
- Cover letter — 250 to 400 words.
- LinkedIn post — around 150 words before it gets truncated.
- Novel — 70,000 to 100,000 words for most adult fiction.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, the average for adults reading English prose for comprehension. Speaking time assumes 150, which is a comfortable presentation pace — useful when a talk has a hard slot and you need to know whether to cut a paragraph.
How each count is defined
Most counters give you a number and never tell you what they measured, which is why three tools can disagree about the same paragraph. Here are our rules, in full.
- Characters
- Grapheme clusters — what a human would point at and call one character. An emoji like 👨👩👧 counts as 1, not 5. Accented letters count as 1 whether they were typed as a single character or as a letter plus a combining accent.
- Words
- A run of letters or digits, held together by apostrophes, hyphens and internal
periods.
don't,state-of-the-art,3.14andU.S.A.are each one word. Links and email addresses count as one word each. - Sentences
- Text ending in
.!?or…, followed by a space or the end of the text. Titles like Dr. and Mt. never end a sentence, initials like J. R. R. are held together, and decimals such as 3.14 are left alone. A line break also ends a sentence, so headings and bullet points are counted properly. - Vowels
- A, E, I, O, U, plus their accented forms — café has two vowels, naïve has three. Y is handled by whichever rule you pick above.
- Consonants
- Every other letter. Digits, spaces and punctuation are neither vowels nor consonants, which is why vowels plus consonants is smaller than your character count.
One thing worth being clear about: this counts letters, not sounds. Queue has four vowel letters and one vowel sound. If you need phonetic syllables rather than written vowels, the syllable estimate in the panel above is closer to what you want.
Common questions
How do I count the words in my essay?
Paste the essay into the box on this page. The word count appears immediately and updates as you edit, so you can trim or expand until you hit your target without pasting it again.
Is "state-of-the-art" one word or four?
This tool counts it as one word, because a hyphenated compound is a single lexical item. Some counters split on hyphens and would call it four. If your institution follows a specific style guide, check which convention it expects.
Does the word counter count numbers?
Yes. A number is treated as one word, including decimals and numbers with thousands separators, so 3.14 and 1,000,000 each count as one.
How many pages is 1,000 words?
Roughly four pages double-spaced or two pages single-spaced, in 12pt Times New Roman with one-inch margins. Fonts, spacing and margins all shift this, so treat it as an estimate rather than a rule.
Is there a limit on how much text I can count?
No. You can paste a whole manuscript. The counting happens in your browser, so it stays fast and your text is never uploaded.
Does it count words as I type?
Yes, live, with no button to press. You can also drop a .txt or .md file straight onto the box.