What is the Word Counter?#
The Word Counter counts words and characters in English text, estimates reading and speaking time, and shows how often each word appears. Paste an essay, a script, or a draft, and the numbers update as you type.
The frequency list surfaces repeated words and keyword candidates, and you can exclude common function words to focus on content words.
How to Use#
- Enter or paste English text into the input box.
- Check the summary for word count, character count, unique words, diversity, reading time, and speaking time.
- Review the word frequency list to see which words the text repeats.
When you are done, copy the summary or download the frequency list as CSV.
What the Results Show#
- Total Words: the number of words found in the text. The stop word and minimum word length filters do not change this number.
- Characters: every character in the input, including spaces and line breaks.
- Unique words: how many different words the text contains.
- Diversity: the share of unique words in the total, as a percentage.
- Reading time: how long the text takes at the selected reading speed. The WPM value used is also shown.
- Speaking time: how long the text takes at 140 words per minute.
Word Frequency List#
The list ranks every word by how often it appears, and a bar in each row shows the count relative to the most frequent word.
- Rank: position by count. Words with the same count share a rank, with no gaps in the numbering.
- Count: how many times the word appears.
- Percent: the word's share of the total word count.
The search box filters the list as you type, and the sort options switch between frequency order and alphabetical order. The list shows 100 words per page, with previous and next controls to browse the rest.
Options#
- Match case: keep "The" and "the" as separate words.
- Exclude stop words: remove common function words such as the, a, is, and of, so content words stand out.
- Exclude numbers: drop words made only of digits, such as years. Mixed words like h264 stay.
- Split hyphenated words: count well-known as two words instead of one.
- Minimum word length: hide words shorter than the selected value. Any keeps every word.
The stop word and minimum word length filters affect the list only. Word count, character count, reading time, and speaking time still cover the whole text.
Export#
Copy summary copies six lines: word count, character count, unique words, diversity, reading time, and speaking time.
Download CSV saves the frequency list with rank, word, count, and percent. The file opens in Excel and other spreadsheet apps, and always contains the full filtered list, even while a search is active or the list is split across pages.
Common Use Cases#
- Fitting an essay or article under a word limit.
- Estimate reading time before publishing a blog post.
- Presentation timing for a speech.
- Find words you repeat too often.
- Keyword frequency checks with common words out of the way.
- Track word count while drafting.
FAQ#
No. The analysis runs entirely in your browser, and your text never leaves your device.
WPM stands for words per minute. Reading time uses 225 WPM by default, and you can change that value with the slider or a preset. Speaking time uses 140 WPM.
Diversity is the number of unique words divided by the total, shown as a percentage. A high value means the text repeats few words. It falls as a text gets longer, so comparisons work best between texts of similar length.
Numbers count as words unless you exclude them. A hyphenated word such as well-known counts as one word until you turn on splitting.
No. The Character Counter covers counts without spaces, line counts, and UTF-8 byte size.
No. This tool counts space-separated English words, so Japanese and Chinese text is not split into words and the word count stays at zero.
Notes#
- Reading and speaking times are estimates based on average paces. Actual times vary with the content and the reader.
- The stop word list is built into the tool and cannot be edited.