What is counted
A word is any run of non-space characters, so hyphenated compounds count as one and numbers count as words. Characters include spaces and punctuation, and the second figure excludes whitespace.
Sentences are split on full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. Paragraphs are split on blank lines.
Worked example
The sentence The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It does this twice today. has 14 words and 70 characters, of which 57 are not spaces. It is two sentences and one paragraph.
At 200 words per minute the reading time is 0.1 minutes, which is a few seconds.
Reading time is an estimate
Two hundred words per minute is a common adult average for general text. Technical material is slower and familiar material is faster, so the figure is a planning aid rather than a measurement.
Speaking rates are lower again, usually 130 to 150 words per minute, which matters if the text is a script.
Limits of this calculator
It counts as text, not as language. It does not know that a decimal point is not a sentence end, and it will count a stray full stop as a sentence.
It does not handle markup, so pasted HTML counts its tags as words.
For byte sizes rather than word counts, use the data calculator.
Inputs for the word calculator
Text to count
Paste or type the text. Counting stops at 20,000 characters.
Reading speed
Words per minute for the reading estimate. 200 is a common adult average.
CALCULATOR QUESTIONS
Word calculator questions
Do numbers count as words?
Yes. Any run of non-space characters counts, so 2026 and 3.5 each count once.
Why is my character count higher than my editor's?
Some editors exclude spaces or line breaks. This page shows both totals so you can compare.
How accurate is the reading time?
It is an average. Technical text takes longer and familiar text takes less.
Does it count markup?
Yes, tags are counted as words. Paste plain text for a meaningful figure.