Word counter with characters, sentences and speaking time.
Paste or type your text to see how many words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences and paragraphs it has, right away. The word counter also shows reading time, speaking time at a sermon, podcast or voice-over pace, and the ten words you repeat the most.
Free, no sign-upText count
- Words
- 0
- Characters with spaces
- 0
- Characters without spaces
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Words per sentence (average)
- 0
- Reading time
- 0:00
Most used words
We leave out articles, prepositions, pronouns and numbers, which repeat in any text.
Your most repeated words show up here.
Have the recording? We transcribe it and count it for you. Try it free
How to count the words in a text
- 01
Paste or type your text
An essay, a script, a social caption or sermon notes all work. The count changes with every letter, with no button to press.
- 02
Pick a speaking pace
Average, sermon, podcast or voice-over. Speaking time updates right away; silent reading time uses a reference of 220 words per minute.
- 03
Copy the count
One button copies every number at once, ready to paste into your document, a note to your client or the content calendar.
What counts as a word and as a character?
A word is any run of letters or numbers. Hyphenated words such as well-known and contractions such as don't count as one. A decimal number such as 3.5 is one word too. Punctuation, loose dashes and emoji are not counted as words.
Characters with spaces are every letter, number, symbol and space in the text; line breaks are left out. Characters without spaces is the same total with every space removed. An emoji or an accented letter counts as one character, the way you see it on screen.
| Text | Words | Characters with spaces | Without spaces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome to church! | 3 | 18 | 16 |
| A glass of water, please. | 5 | 25 | 21 |
| 3.5 million views | 3 | 17 | 15 |
| Hi 👋🏽 how are you? | 4 | 17 | 13 |
How many characters fit on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok?
Every platform cuts text at a different limit, and anything past it simply is not published. Write the caption or description here, check the characters with spaces (that is the count the platforms use) and only then paste it into the app.
On Instagram, post and Reels captions take up to 2,200 characters, but only the first lines show before the more link. On YouTube, titles take 100 characters and descriptions 5,000; in search results, titles are usually cut near 60. So the first sentence needs to carry the topic of the video.
| Where | Field | Character limit |
|---|---|---|
| Post or Reels caption | 2,200 | |
| Profile bio | 150 | |
| YouTube | Video title | 100 |
| YouTube | Video description | 5,000 |
| TikTok | Video caption | 4,000 |
| Title shown in search | about 60 |
How long does it take to read or say a text?
For silent reading we use a reference of 220 words per minute, an adult reading with attention. Speaking pace depends on the content: a sermon has pauses and Scripture readings, a podcast is loose conversation and a voice-over has to be clear. The counter shows all four paces and the time changes the moment you switch.
If your question runs the other way, how many words to write to fill 5 minutes, use our words to minutes tool. Both use the same references, so the numbers match.
| Pace | Words per minute | 500-word text |
|---|---|---|
| Silent reading | 220 | 2:16 |
| Podcast | 160 | 3:08 |
| Average | 150 | 3:20 |
| Voice-over | 145 | 3:27 |
| Sermon | 130 | 3:51 |
What are the most used words good for?
The list shows the ten words you repeat the most, with how many times each appears. It is a quick editing aid: in an essay or a script, the same word three times in one paragraph jumps out at readers and wears on listeners.
It also checks the topic of a YouTube description or an article: if your main subject is not among the most used words, people searching for it will have a hard time finding your content. Articles, prepositions, pronouns and numbers are left out, and the language of the text (English, Portuguese or Spanish) is detected on its own.
- Editing: swap repeats for synonyms or rewrite the sentence.
- Scripts: make sure the core idea comes up often enough to stick.
- Descriptions and articles: confirm the words people search for are in the text.
More than a word counter. The count of what was actually said, in your video.
See also
Frequently asked questions
How do I count the words in a text?
Paste or type the text into the counter box. Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs show up right away and change as you type. There is nothing to click and no account to create, and the copy button takes every number at once.
How long does it take to say 1,000 words?
About 6 minutes and 40 seconds at an average pace of 150 words per minute. At a sermon pace of around 130, it takes about 7 minutes and 40 seconds. Read silently, the same 1,000 words take roughly four and a half minutes.
Does the counter include spaces in the character count?
It shows both. Characters with spaces add up letters, numbers, punctuation and spaces, without line breaks. That is the count Instagram, YouTube and TikTok use for caption, title and description limits. Characters without spaces is the same total with every space removed.
How many words are on a page?
A single-spaced page in a 12 point font holds about 500 words, and a double-spaced page about 250. The real number changes with the font, the margins and how long your paragraphs are, so the safest way is to paste the text here and count it.
How does the counter pick the most used words?
We count how many times each word appears, ignoring upper and lower case, and show the ten most frequent. Articles, prepositions, pronouns, numbers and one-letter words are left out because they repeat in any text. The language (English, Portuguese or Spanish) is detected from the text itself.
Is the word counter free?
Yes. It is free, needs no sign-up and has no usage cap: count as many texts as you want, of any length. A FilmScribe plan only comes in if you want us to transcribe a recording, with the time of every line and who spoke it.
Have the recording? We transcribe it and count it for you. Word by word.
Upload a video or paste a YouTube link. We transcribe it with who spoke and the time of every line, split it into chapters, and you download it as TXT, PDF or SRT.
See the result on your own recording before adding a card.