Word & Character Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, with estimated reading time. Runs locally.
Paste or type text and get a live count of words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, and paragraphs, plus an estimated reading time. Useful for hitting a strict word count on an essay or job application, checking a meta description or tweet stays under a character limit, or estimating how long a script will take to read aloud. Counting updates instantly as you type and runs entirely in your browser.
Runs on your device. This tool processes your file inside this browser tab. Nothing is uploaded, so it also works offline once the page has loaded, and closing the tab discards the file from memory.
Loading tool
Details
- Category
- Developer & data
- Formats
- DOCX
- Runs
- In your browser
- Files uploaded
- No
- Cost per run
- Free
- Sign-in
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes, once loaded
Last updated 2026-08-12
Common questions
How is reading time estimated?
It's calculated from your word count using an average adult silent-reading speed, so actual time varies with text complexity and reading pace.
Does it count characters with or without spaces?
Both are shown, since some limits (like tweets) count spaces and others don't.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No - counting happens entirely in your browser.
Does it count paragraphs and sentences too?
Yes - alongside word and character counts, it tracks sentence and paragraph counts based on punctuation and line breaks.
Use this from your code
This tool is also a REST endpoint, so you can run it in a pipeline instead of by hand. It is free and needs no API key. See the API reference for every parameter.
curl -X POST https://fileoven.com/api/v1/tools/word-counter \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"text":"hello world"}'