Browser-based · Live writing metrics
Count it. Then understand it.
Words, characters, sentences and reading time as you type — plus the keyword density, sentence shape and reading level a total never shows you. Set a real platform limit as a goal and write toward what remains.
Live writing metrics
Write, count and analyse
Live counts, goals, keyword density, structure and readability — in your browser, on text that never leaves it. Counting is immediate; the keyword, insight and diff passes are deferred, so a 130,000-word paste never makes the next keystroke wait.
Nothing uploadedLocal
Clean up
- Runs locally
- No account required
- Autosaved to this device
- Export what you need
Runs locallyNo upload, and no server to upload to
No account requiredFree, with no watermark or gate
Autosaved to this deviceA refresh does not lose the draft
Export what you needText, Markdown, a keyword CSV or a report
Simple process
How the Word Counter works
Every word counter tells you how long something is. This one also tells you what it is made of: which words you lean on, where the sentences run away, how the paragraphs balance, and how close you are to the limit you actually have to hit.
01 Add your text
Type, paste, or drop a TXT, Markdown, DOCX, ODT or RTF file straight onto the editor. Files are parsed on your device — a DOCX is unzipped in the page, not uploaded. Your draft is autosaved to this browser as you write.
02 Set a goal
Choose a maintained preset — X post, meta description, UCAS statement, SMS — or set your own exact, minimum or maximum target in words or characters. The bar shows progress, what remains, and when you have gone over.
03 Read the live counts
Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines, blank lines, unique words, syllables, estimated pages and reading, speaking and handwriting time. Select part of the text and every figure switches to that selection.
04 Analyse keywords and structure
Keywords ranks single words and two- and three-word phrases by frequency and density. Insights reads the shape of the writing: longest sentence, sentence-length spread, repeated words and openings, paragraph balance and an estimated reading level.
05 Clean up or compare
Ten reversible actions fix messy pasted text — collapse spaces, unwrap email line breaks, normalise quotes, strip invisible characters. Comparison mode puts two drafts side by side with a word-level diff and every metric delta.
06 Export
Text as TXT or Markdown, the keyword table as CSV, or the full analysis as a printable report. Copy the statistics to the clipboard in one click for a status update or a submission note.
Beyond the total
Counting is easy.Knowing it is done is not.
Which words you lean on, where the sentences run away from you, and how close you are to the number you actually have to hit.
Popular writing goals
The limits people are actually counting to.
Pick one and it becomes a live target in the editor above, with a progress bar and a remaining count. Every figure is the platform’s published limit, reviewed 2026-07-31.
Published platform limits, checked against each platform's own documentation on the date above. Platforms change these without notice and several count links and emoji by their own rules, so treat every figure as a close guide and confirm in the destination before publishing.
Count-rule examples
Where counters disagree, and what this one does.
Every application defines a word slightly differently, and almost none of them say which rules they use. These are ours. The counts below are not written down — each one is produced by running the same engine the editor above runs, on the example beside it, when this page renders.
| Rule | Example | Words | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyphenated words | A well-known author | 3 | One word. Microsoft Word agrees; some university markers count two. |
| Apostrophes and contractions | It doesn’t, O’Brien | 3 | Straight and curly apostrophes both stay inside the word. |
| Decimals and thousands | It cost 1,299.50 exactly | 4 | Digits with separators stay together. |
| Web addresses | Visit https://motifuse.com/tools/word-counter today | 3 | A whole URL is one word, however long its path. |
| Email addresses | Mail hello@example.com now | 3 | One word, not three. |
| Em dashes | Fast—very fast—indeed | 4 | An em dash separates words even with no spaces around it, so this is four words and not two. |
| Emoji | Great work 🎉👍 | 2 | Emoji are not words. They do count as characters — see the character rules. |
| Languages without spaces | 今天天气很好 | 6 | Each Han character counts as one word, which is the convention for Chinese and Japanese. |
| Standalone numbers | Chapter 12 begins | 3 | A number is a word. |
Characters
Counted as Unicode code points, so “é” is one character whether it is composed or precomposed.
Platform characters
Many platforms count UTF-16 units instead, which makes most emoji cost two. Both totals are shown, and the platform limits use the UTF-16 figure.
Without spaces
Spaces, tabs and line breaks removed. Punctuation is kept — it is a character.
Line breaks
One character each. A file written on Windows may count one more per line elsewhere.
Counts
- Words, with documented rules for hyphens, apostrophes, URLs and CJK
- Characters with spaces, without spaces, and as platforms count them
- Sentences that ignore abbreviations, decimals and initials
- Paragraphs, lines and blank lines, counted separately
- Unique words, vocabulary diversity and syllables
- Estimated pages at three manuscript settings
Time
- Reading time at 238 words per minute
- Speaking time at 130 words per minute
- Handwriting time at 20 words per minute
- Shown in seconds under a minute, rather than rounded up to one
Analysis
- Keyword and phrase frequency with density
- Stop-word filtering, case sensitivity and a custom ignore list
- Repeated words, phrases and sentence openings
- Sentence-length distribution and the longest sentence
- Paragraph balance and average paragraph length
- Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch–Kincaid Grade
Workflow
- Goals with progress, remaining count and over-limit warning
- Import from TXT, Markdown, DOCX, ODT and RTF
- Ten reversible cleanup actions, plus find and replace
- Draft autosave, recovery and recent documents
- Side-by-side comparison with a word-level diff
- Export to TXT, Markdown, CSV and a printable report
Writing use cases
Who counts, and why.
Almost nobody wants a word count for its own sake. They want to know whether something fits, whether it is finished, or whether it repeats itself.
Students
Hit a word minimum without padding, and find the 60-word sentence a marker will circle.
SEO and content
Title tags and meta descriptions to the character, and keyword density measured honestly against the full word count.
Social media
Every current platform limit in one place, counted the way the platforms count — where one emoji costs two.
Speakers and creators
Pace a script by speaking time, then use the sentence-length map to find where an audience loses the thread.
Job and grant applications
Hard limits in forms with no counter. Paste, hit the number exactly, paste back.
Authors and bloggers
Track daily output, estimate pages, and compare two drafts word by word to see what a revision actually changed.
Translators and editors
Count source and target, compare lengths, and check a language the browser can segment properly.
Anyone with messy text
Unwrap an email, strip invisible characters from a PDF paste, dedupe a list — with undo on every action.
Reading level bands
The Insights tab reports Flesch Reading Ease. It is an English-only estimate driven mainly by sentence length and syllables per word, so it measures effort rather than clarity — a plain sentence full of long technical nouns still scores as difficult.
Very hard0+
Long sentences and heavy vocabulary. Consider splitting sentences.
Hard30+
Academic or technical register. Slow going for a general reader.
Fairly hard50+
Longer sentences or denser vocabulary. Fine for a specialist audience.
Standard60+
Around a 9th-grade reading age — the usual target for news and marketing.
Fairly easy70+
Plain English. A good target for public-facing copy.
Easy80+
Conversational. Comfortable for most adults reading quickly.
Very easy90+
Around a 5th-grade reading age. Short sentences, common words.
- No upload
- No account
- No AI API
- Autosave is local
Privacy by design
Your text never leaves this tab.
People paste unpublished manuscripts, client briefs, legal drafts and job applications into word counters. There was never a reason for this one to need a server, so it does not have one.
Autosave is local too. The draft is kept in this browser so a refresh does not lose it — not on a server, and not synced anywhere. It can be cleared from the editor.
Nothing is uploaded
Counting, analysis, import and export all run in your browser. There is no submit step and no request that carries your text.
Documents are parsed on your device
A DOCX or ODT is a ZIP file; it is unzipped and read inside the page. The file never reaches a server.
Drafts stay in this browser
Autosave writes to local storage so an accidental tab close does not lose your work. It is not synced, and the Document tab clears it.
No account, no history on our side
We do not know what you counted, how long it was, or that you counted anything at all.
Safe for confidential text
An unpublished manuscript, a client brief, a legal document, a job application — none of it leaves the machine you typed it on.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Keep working
Tools that pair with this one
Readability CheckerA deeper read on reading level, with several formulas side by side.Keyword Density CheckerA focused view of term frequency for a single target phrase.Case ConverterTitle, sentence, upper and lower case in one click.Remove Duplicate LinesDedupe a list without loading a whole editor.Meta Tag GeneratorBuild the title and description you just measured.SERP Snippet PreviewSee how the title and description will actually render in search.Text ObfuscatorMask sensitive text before sharing a sample.Lorem Ipsum GeneratorPlaceholder copy at a length you specify.
Longer write-ups
Why length limits are really pixel limits
How to write SEO titles and meta descriptions that people clickWhy the character limits are really pixel limits, and what to do about it.Keyword density for SEO, without keyword stuffingWhat density measures, what it does not, and the number that actually matters.How to convert text case correctlyTitle case, sentence case, and the rules that differ between style guides.A practical technical SEO checklist for 2026Where title and description length sit among everything else that matters.
Got a draft with a limit to hit?
Paste it above and set the real limit as a goal — then write toward what remains rather than checking afterwards.