Word counter: count words and characters online

What are the character limits for Google, X, Instagram and LinkedIn?

These are the limits the traffic light in the tool checks against, all counted as characters with spaces.

How does the word counter count words and characters?

A word is anything between two spaces or line breaks that contains at least one letter or digit. Numbers like 2026 and hyphenated terms like keyword-density count as one word each, while a lone dash or a bullet does not. Characters are counted exactly, emojis and accented letters included. You get two numbers: characters with spaces and characters without spaces. The number with spaces is almost always the one that matters, because Google, LinkedIn, X and application portals count that way. Sentences are detected by periods, exclamation marks, question marks and ellipses, paragraphs by blank lines.

Is this a free online word counter without sign-up?

Yes. There is no account, no limit on text length and no upload. The counter runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript, so it works for a 50-word product description and a 20,000-word thesis alike. You can even load the page, switch off your internet connection and keep counting. Many free word counter tools send every keystroke to a server, which is a real problem for confidential drafts, contracts or application letters. This one does not.

When do you need a character counter instead of a word counter?

Whenever a limit is given in characters. That applies to the title tag (under 60 characters), the meta description (under 155), tweets (280), LinkedIn posts (3,000), Instagram captions (2,200), Google Ads headlines (30) and descriptions (90), and plenty of online forms such as cover letters or reviews. You count words for essays, blog posts, press releases and translations that are billed per word. This tool does both at once, so you never have to switch between two pages.

How do you use it as an essay word counter?

Paste the whole essay, read the word count at the top and check the paragraph count against your outline. For a 1,500-word assignment, most tutors allow about ten percent either way, so 1,350 to 1,650 words is fine. The reading time tells you how long a reviewer will spend on it, the top-10 list shows which terms you repeat too often, and the sentence count divided by the word count gives your average sentence length. Anything above 25 words per sentence is worth splitting.

Does it work as a Twitter / X character counter?

Yes. Type or paste the post into the field and watch the X row in the traffic light. Green means you have room, yellow means you are within 30 characters of the limit, red means X will refuse the post. X counts most characters as one, but emojis and some symbols count as two, so leave a little margin. For threads, write each post separately and check them one at a time. The same works for Instagram captions and LinkedIn posts, where the first 210 characters are the ones visible before the "see more" link.

Why use this instead of the word counter in Google Docs?

Google Docs shows words, characters and pages, but nothing else. This word counter adds sentences, paragraphs, reading and speaking time, keyword density, a frequency list and the character limit counter for titles, meta descriptions and social posts. It is also quicker for short snippets: copy a headline, paste, read the traffic light, done. For long documents you can keep writing in Docs and paste the finished text here for the final check.

How are reading time and speaking time calculated?

Reading time uses 200 words per minute, the average for adults reading non-fiction on a screen. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for videos, podcasts and talks. For a 90-second video you need roughly 195 words of script, for a 10-minute presentation about 1,300. If you speak slowly or read out many numbers, plan 10 to 15 percent more time.

What does keyword density tell you about your text?

Keyword density is the share of the entered keyword among all words. For multi-word keywords like "word counter" every match is weighted by the number of words in the keyword, so the percentage stays comparable. A value between 0.5 and 2 percent reads naturally. Above that the text quickly feels like keyword stuffing, which has not helped on Google for years. Position matters more than density: keyword in the H1, the title, the first paragraph and one H2. The top-10 list below shows which terms really dominate, with filler words like "and", "the" or "is" filtered out.

Which tools help after counting?

If you need a strong password for your new CMS, the password generator creates one in your browser. If you want to keep a customer conversation as a PDF, the WhatsApp chat export guide shows the way for Android and iPhone and cleans up the export file. And if you work with Claude, Export a Claude chat saves any shared conversation as Markdown, PDF, Word or HTML.