What counts as a word
Anything separated by spaces or line breaks. Hyphenated words like "long-term" count once; numbers count as words; stray punctuation does not. Sentences end at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time uses 225 words a minute, a typical adult reading silently. Speaking time uses 150 words a minute, a comfortable pace for a speech or video script. A 5-minute talk is about 750 words.
Common questions
How many words is one page?
About 500 words single-spaced or 250 double-spaced, in 12-point type.
Does the counter work for other languages?
Yes for any language that separates words with spaces, including Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil. It is less accurate for Chinese or Japanese, which do not use spaces.
Need to check a social-media limit?
Use the character counter, which shows room left for X, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.