Free SEO Tool

Free Word Counter

Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and speaking time, counted as you type. Nothing leaves your browser.

Paste or type your text

Words

Characters

0 without spaces

Sentences

Paragraphs

Reading time

0 sec

at 238 words per minute

Speaking time

0 sec

at 140 words per minute

Pages

single spaced

Pages

double spaced

A word counter that also counts everything else

Most tools in this space split the job across separate pages: one for words, another for characters, another for reading time. This word counter online gives you all of them at once, updating as you type. One word count checker, rather than four browser tabs.

1. Paste or type

Counts update on every keystroke. Nothing is uploaded, so an unpublished draft stays on your machine, which is not true of every tool in this category.

2. Get every count at once

Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading time, speaking time and page estimates, rather than one number per page.

3. Spot repeated words

The most repeated words are listed with their density, which is usually the real reason someone is checking a draft rather than the raw total.

Your text never leaves your browser

Worth saying plainly, because it is the thing nobody in this category mentions. Every count on this page is calculated in JavaScript on your own machine. There is no server call, no account, no logging, and no copy of your text anywhere.

That matters more than it sounds. People paste unpublished manuscripts, client work, legal drafts and internal documents into free word counters, and a good number of those tools send the text to a server to process it. If you are working on anything covered by an agreement, that is a real consideration. Here you can disconnect your network and the counts still work.

What each count actually measures

Words. Any run of non-space characters. A hyphenated compound counts as one word, which is how word processors do it too.
Characters. Shown both ways, since a character counter is usually being consulted against a limit, and different platforms count spaces differently.
Sentences. A sentence counter has to handle the awkward cases, and this one does: decimals like 3.14, abbreviations like Dr. and etc., initials like J. K. Rowling, and an ellipsis mid-sentence are all handled rather than counted as breaks.
Paragraphs. Split on blank lines, falling back to single line breaks when the text has none.
Reading and speaking time. 238 and 140 words per minute respectively. The reading figure is the average for English non-fiction from a meta-analysis of 190 studies rather than a round number picked for convenience.

Does word count matter for SEO?

Less directly than the amount written about it suggests. Google has no word count threshold, and there is no length that ranks. What is true is that thorough pages tend to be longer, so length correlates with ranking without causing it. Writing to hit a number produces padding, and padding is easy for both readers and search engines to recognise.

The more useful question is what the query needs. Look at what currently ranks for your target term and ask whether those pages cover it properly. If they do it in 800 words, a 3,000 word version is not automatically better and is often worse. If they all leave something out, that gap is worth more than any amount of extra length.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a 1000 word essay take to read?

Around 4 minutes for most adults reading silently. That comes from roughly 238 words per minute, the average for English non-fiction across a large body of research. Reading speed varies a great deal between people though, so treat 4 minutes as the middle of a range that realistically runs from about 3 to 6.

How many words is a 7 minute speech?

Roughly 1,000 words at a normal presentation pace of about 140 words per minute. If you speak quickly you might fit 1,100, and a deliberate, pause-heavy delivery could be closer to 850. Paste your script above and the speaking time updates as you write, which is more useful than working backwards from a target.

Can I speak 1000 words in 5 minutes?

Only at 200 words per minute, which is fast enough that an audience will struggle. It is achievable for a practised speaker reading familiar material, but comprehension drops sharply above roughly 160 words per minute. If you have 5 minutes, aim for around 700 words and leave room to breathe.

How long is a 1000 word essay?

About 2 pages single spaced or 4 pages double spaced, at 12pt with normal margins. The tool above shows both. Bear in mind that font, spacing and margins change this significantly, so if you have been given a page limit rather than a word limit it is worth confirming the formatting expected.

How many A4 pages is 1000 words?

Two A4 pages single spaced, or four double spaced, using 12pt type and standard margins. A4 and US Letter are close enough in area that the difference rarely changes the page count for prose. Headings, images and block quotes will push it out further than the raw word count suggests.

How many pages is 1000 words Times New Roman 12 double spaced?

Four pages. Double spaced 12pt Times New Roman fits roughly 250 words per page, which is the convention most academic page limits assume. The double spaced figure in the tool above uses exactly that, so it should match what your word processor reports.

How long should a blog post be in 2026?

There is no correct number, and any tool telling you one is selling something. What matters is covering the query properly: some questions are answered well in 600 words and padding them out actively hurts. The honest method is to look at what currently ranks for your target term and match the depth rather than the length.

Is a 3000 word blog post too long?

Only if 3,000 words is more than the subject needs. Long posts do well when the topic genuinely requires that much ground covered, and badly when the length was the goal. Length correlates with ranking mainly because thorough pages tend to be longer, not because Google rewards word count directly.

How do I check word count in Microsoft Word or Google Docs?

In Word the count sits in the status bar at the bottom left, or use Review then Word Count. In Google Docs it is Tools then Word count, or Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows and Cmd+Shift+C on Mac. A tool like this one is quicker when you only want to check a passage, since you can paste a selection rather than the whole file.

Does this word counter send my text anywhere?

No. Every count is calculated in your browser and nothing is transmitted or stored. There is no account, no server call and no log. That matters if you are checking an unpublished draft, a client document or anything under an agreement, since plenty of free tools in this category post your text to their servers to process it.

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