How long is this, really?

Counting words, characters and reading time

Different platforms count differently, and the differences are not trivial: a 500-word limit on one site may be a 560-word count on another because of how hyphens and numbers are treated. This tool shows the components so you can see where the gap comes from.

1. Paste your text. Everything is counted as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere — the text stays in the browser tab, which matters if it is unpublished work or anything confidential.
2. Read the word count first. Words are split on whitespace, which is the convention nearly every editor and submission system uses. Hyphenated words count as one.
3. Check characters with and without spaces. Both numbers are shown because both are used as limits: Twitter counts characters, some meta description fields count without spaces, and academic abstracts vary.
4. Use the reading time. Based on 200–250 words per minute for silent reading, which is the range most publishing guidelines assume. Speaking is slower, closer to 130–150 words per minute.

When this comes up

• Hitting a word limit. University applications, journal submissions, scholarship essays and freelance briefs all impose limits, and being 40 words over is a real problem.
• Writing a meta description or an ad. Character limits are hard cutoffs in search results and in ad platforms, and cutting a sentence afterwards usually damages it.
• Estimating how long a talk will take. A 1,500-word script is about ten minutes spoken. Knowing this before writing the slides is better than discovering it at rehearsal.
• Checking density in a document. Sentence count and average sentence length are the two numbers editors use to judge readability without running a full readability score.

Questions