Word Counter

At 225 words a minute, which is a typical adult silent reading speed for ordinary prose. Speaking time uses 150 words a minute, the pace of unhurried presentation. Both are estimates — dense technical writing reads slower, and a familiar subject reads faster — but they are close enough for planning a talk or setting a reader's expectation.

Any run of characters separated by whitespace. A hyphenated compound like "well-known" counts as one, and a number counts as one. This matches how word processors count, so the figure should agree with the one your editor or your word limit assumes.

Usually because of spaces or line breaks. Both counts are shown here — with and without spaces — because different limits mean different things. Social platforms and SMS count everything including spaces; some academic limits exclude them.

Somewhere around 15 to 20 words for general prose. Consistently above 25 and readers lose the thread; consistently below 10 and the writing reads as choppy. The warning appears at the extremes rather than nagging about every sentence, because varying the length is what makes writing readable — an average is a signal, not a rule.

No. Everything is counted in the browser as you type, with no request carrying the text, which is the point when the draft is unpublished or confidential.