Count words, characters, sentences, reading time
Built & maintained by Pappu Venkata Subbi Reddy, founder of Clacify · Updated July 2026
Word Counter is a free real-time text analysis tool that counts words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and estimated reading time as you type or paste. It is built for students working to strict essay word limits, content writers optimising for SEO length, and professionals drafting social-media posts within platform limits — Twitter/X at 280 characters, Instagram captions at 2,200, and LinkedIn posts at 3,000. The counts update instantly with no button to press, and because all analysis runs locally, your text is never stored or transmitted, making it safe for confidential drafts and unpublished work.
Words are counted as sequences of non-whitespace characters separated by whitespace. Characters are counted as Unicode code points, reported both including and excluding spaces. Sentences are detected by terminal punctuation (full stop, exclamation mark, question mark) followed by whitespace or end of text; paragraphs are blocks separated by blank lines. Reading time uses the widely accepted average of 200 words per minute for adult silent reading. All counting runs client-side in JavaScript the moment your text changes — there are no server calls and nothing is logged.
| Where | Limit | Counted as |
|---|---|---|
| X / Twitter post | 280 characters | characters |
| SMS (single message) | 160 characters | characters |
| Meta description (SEO) | 150–160 characters | characters |
| Title tag (SEO) | 50–60 characters | characters |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters | characters |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters | characters |
| YouTube description | 5,000 characters | characters |
| UPSC/SSC essay (typical) | 1,000–1,200 words | words |
Paste your text above to see exactly where you stand against any of these limits in real time. Limits change occasionally — check the platform if you are right at the edge.
Different tasks care about different counts. Social posts and meta tags are capped by characters (including spaces), so that's the number to watch when you're writing a tweet or an SEO snippet. Essays, articles and assignments are judged by word count. And reading time — at the widely used average of 200 words per minute — is what tells a blog reader "this is a 5-minute read". This tool shows all of them at once so you never have to guess.
Small differences between counters are normal and come down to definitions. Some tools count hyphenated terms ("state-of-the-art") as one word, others as three; some include or exclude numbers and standalone symbols. This counter treats a word as any run of non-whitespace characters separated by spaces — the most common convention — so it matches the majority of word processors. If a strict limit matters, count the way your target platform does.
Writers use it to hit a target length; students to stay within an essay's word limit; SEO folks to keep titles under ~60 characters and meta descriptions under ~160; and social media managers to fit a caption before it gets truncated. Because everything runs in your browser, you can safely paste sensitive or unpublished text — nothing is uploaded or stored.
Paste or type your text into Clacify's Word Counter. It instantly displays word count, character count, sentence count, and estimated reading time. No button clicks required — the count updates as you type.
A 5-minute read is approximately 700–800 words at an average adult reading speed of 150 words per minute. For a 3-minute read, aim for about 450 words. The Word Counter shows estimated reading time automatically.