Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and estimate reading time for any text. Paste your essay, article, or document for instant analysis. Updates live as you type.
| Content Type | Typical Word Count |
|---|---|
| Tweet / Social post | 10–30 words |
| Blog post (short) | 300–600 words |
| Blog post (standard) | 1,000–1,500 words |
| Essay / Article | 1,500–3,000 words |
| Short story | 1,000–7,500 words |
| Novel | 70,000–100,000 words |
Words are counted by splitting on whitespace, so hyphenated terms like "well-known" count as one. Characters are counted both with and without spaces, since different platforms measure differently.
| Context | Typical limit |
|---|---|
| Meta description | ~155 characters |
| Page title tag | ~60 characters |
| SMS message | 160 characters |
| UCAS personal statement | 4,000 characters |
| Abstract (academic) | 150–300 words |
Note that character limits are stricter than word limits, because they punish long words. A 150-word paragraph of technical vocabulary can exceed a 1,000-character cap that a plainer paragraph of the same length fits inside.
Silent reading averages roughly 200–250 words per minute for adults on general material, slower for dense or technical text. Speaking aloud is considerably slower — around 130–150 words per minute at a comfortable presentation pace.
That gap matters when writing a talk. A 2,000-word script reads in about 9 minutes but takes 14 or more to deliver, and that is before pauses, questions or the natural slowing that nerves produce.
Draft long and cut. Trying to hit a word count on the first pass usually produces padding, because you end up writing to fill rather than to say something. Cutting a 1,200-word draft to 800 almost always reads better than stretching 600 words to the same target.