Does the word count match Microsoft Word?

For ordinary prose, yes. Both split on whitespace, so a sentence of ten words gives ten in each. Small differences appear with hyphenated compounds and numbers: Word treats 'state-of-the-art' as one word and so does this tool, but some tools count it as four. If you are near a hard limit, leave yourself a few words of margin.

What is the difference between the two character counts?

'Characters' includes every space, tab and line break. 'Characters (no spaces)' counts only visible glyphs. Social platforms and SMS count the former, so use that figure when you are up against a posting limit.

How are sentences detected?

By terminal punctuation — . ! and ?. This means abbreviations like 'e.g.' or 'Dr.' can be over-counted as sentence endings. The word and character counts are unaffected, so treat the sentence figure as a close estimate rather than an exact parse.

Is there a limit on how much text I can paste?

There is no imposed limit. Because the counting happens in your browser, the practical ceiling is your device's memory — book-length documents are fine on any modern machine.

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. The counting runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing is transmitted to a server, logged or stored, which makes it safe for unpublished or confidential drafts.

Text & Writing

Word & Character Counter

This counter reports the five numbers people are usually asked for: words, characters with spaces, characters without spaces, sentences and paragraphs. Paste a draft and all five update together, so you can check an essay against a word limit or a meta description against a character budget without switching tools.

Free, no signupRuns entirely in your browser

Input

Input Text

Result

Words: 0
Characters: 0
Characters (no spaces): 0
Paragraphs: 0
Sentences: 0

About

What the Word & Character Counter does

The distinction between the two character counts matters more than it looks. Twitter/X, SMS gateways and most database columns count every character including spaces; some older SEO plugins and print layout tools count only visible glyphs. When a limit is tight, check which one you are actually being measured against.

How it works

Using the Word & Character Counter

1Type or paste your text into the input box.
2Words are counted by splitting on runs of whitespace, so double spaces and line breaks never inflate the total.
3Sentences are counted from terminal punctuation — full stops, question marks and exclamation marks.
4Paragraphs are counted from line breaks, so each block of text on its own line counts once.
5Read whichever figure you need from the results panel; all of them recalculate together.

Use cases

What people use it for

Checking an essay, dissertation or cover letter against a strict word limit
Trimming a meta description to roughly 155 characters before publishing
Confirming a bio fits a profile field that caps at 150 or 500 characters
Estimating translation or copywriting cost, which is usually quoted per word

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

6 related

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