Paste your text
About this word counter
Word limits are everywhere in an American student's life: the Common App essay caps at 650 words, a history DBQ expects around 400, discussion-board posts often require a minimum of 250, and scholarship committees routinely cut off anything longer than the stated limit. Writing to a target is a skill — and you cannot manage what you cannot measure.
This counter updates live as you type or paste. Beyond words and characters (with and without spaces — some professors count differently), it estimates sentences and paragraphs, so you can check that your five-paragraph essay really has five paragraphs, and that the average sentence isn't running thirty words long.
Two time estimates round out the picture: reading time assumes silent reading of about 200 words per minute, which is how long your reader will spend on the text, while speaking time at 130 words per minute tells you how long a presentation of this text would take out loud. Set an essay goal to watch your progress bar fill toward 250, 500 or the classic 650-word college essay.
Everything happens in your browser: the text never leaves your device, so it is safe for unpublished drafts and take-home exams alike.
Typical essay length requirements in U.S. schools
| Assignment | Typical length |
|---|---|
| Short answer / in-class response | 100–250 |
| Standard 5-paragraph essay | 500–800 |
| High school research paper | 1,500–3,000 |
| College application essay | 250–650 |
| SAT / ACT essay-style response | 300–650 |
| Term paper | 3,000–5,000 |
How to count words in your text
- Paste or type your text: Drop your essay, discussion post or assignment draft into the text area — nothing is uploaded anywhere.
- Watch live statistics: Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and speaking time update as you type.
- Track your essay goal: Pick a word goal such as 650 for a college application essay and watch the progress bar fill as you write.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count words in an essay?
Paste your essay into this tool and the word count updates instantly — words are sequences of characters separated by spaces, which is the same rule Microsoft Word and Google Docs use. Nothing is uploaded; the count happens locally in your browser.
Do word counts include spaces?
Word counts never include spaces — a word is a chunk of non-space characters. Character counts, however, come in both flavors: with spaces (used for text-message-length limits and social media) and without spaces (some academic forms ask for this). This tool shows both.
How long is a 650-word essay?
About 3 to 4 paragraphs of 150–200 words each, or roughly one single-spaced page. Read aloud, it takes around 5 minutes; a silent reader gets through it in about 3 minutes. The 650-word limit is the famous cap for the Common App personal statement.
How is reading time calculated?
Silent reading averages about 200 words per minute for adult readers, and speaking pace averages about 130 words per minute — the pace of a measured presentation. The tool divides your word count by these rates, so a 1000-word text reads silently in about 5 minutes and takes nearly 8 minutes to present.