Word Counter

About the StudyKit Word Counter

This free browser tool counts words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs while you type or paste. Nothing you type is uploaded and no account is needed, which makes it suitable for unpublished drafts, client work, and personal notes. It is useful for checking a writing target, comparing two revisions of the same piece, and catching sections that have quietly grown longer than you intended.

What each total actually counts

The figures are exact rather than approximate, so it is worth knowing what each one includes.

• Words are separated by whitespace. A contraction such as “don’t” counts as one word, and a hyphenated compound counts as one word.
• Characters with spaces counts every character, including spaces, line breaks, and punctuation.
• Characters without spaces is the same total with all whitespace removed. This is the figure most length limits are written against.
• Sentences are counted wherever a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark is followed by a space or the end of the text. A draft with no closing punctuation counts as a single sentence.
• Paragraphs are separated by line breaks.

A worked example

Pasting Hello world. Second sentence! returns 4 words, 29 characters including spaces, 26 without spaces, 2 sentences, and 1 paragraph. Paste The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. and the same panel reports 9 words, 44 characters including spaces, and 36 without. Because the totals update on every keystroke, you can watch a revision shrink as you cut it.

Where this gets used

• Assignments with a word limit. Check the count before you submit rather than discovering the overrun afterwards.
• Meta descriptions and search snippets. Search engines usually truncate around 155 to 160 characters, so the “without spaces” figure is the one to watch.
• Comparing revisions. Paste version one, note the totals, then paste version two to see the real difference rather than guessing at it.
• Transcripts and captions. Handy when a platform caps length or duration.

What this counter does not do

It measures length, not quality. It does not check spelling, grammar, readability, or whether a claim is supported, and it cannot tell you whether a draft satisfies a rubric or a brief. Applications also disagree about how they count, so confirm the exact requirement your school, client, or platform specifies before you rely on a total. Measure the work, then read the work.

For more detail on a single document, the reading time and text analyzer adds characters, sentences, and an estimate of how long the text takes to read or present. To see which words appear most often, use the keyword density checker instead, or see every tool we have. To see how a document is built rather than how long it is, the writing pattern analyser measures sentence variation and repetition. Pasted text that will not behave, or that has invisible characters in it, can be cleaned with the invisible character cleaner.