How to use the word counter
- Paste or type your text into the box.
- Read the live counts: words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
- Use the buttons to change case, tidy spaces, strip HTML to plain text, copy or download.
Who uses a word counter
Students with a 1,500-word essay limit, writers paid by the word, anyone fitting a bio into a form, and marketers checking a title tag or meta description. The live counts at the top are the ones most people need; the panel on the right has the rest, including a readability score so you can tell whether a paragraph has drifted into jargon.
HTML to text for product listings
Marketplace description fields are inconsistent: some accept a handful of HTML tags, some strip them, some show the raw tags to shoppers. Paste a supplier's HTML description here and press "HTML → text" to get clean paragraphs and bullet points for a field that wants plain text; write your copy here and press "Text → HTML" for a field that wants simple, valid tags. Both work without uploading anything.
Counting rules
A word is any run of letters or digits separated by spaces, so "well-known" is one word and "3.5" is one word. A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. A paragraph is text separated by a blank line. Characters include spaces, punctuation and line breaks; "without spaces" removes all white space.
Questions and answers
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser and nothing leaves your device. The text is kept in your browser's local storage so it is still there if you come back, and 'Clear' removes it.
How is reading time worked out?
At 238 words per minute, the average adult silent-reading speed found in a 2019 review of 190 studies (Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language). Speaking time uses 150 words per minute, a typical presentation pace.
What does the readability score mean?
It is the Flesch Reading Ease score: 100 is very easy, 60 to 70 is plain English that most adults read comfortably, below 30 is academic. The grade is the Flesch–Kincaid US school grade needed to follow the text.
Does it count words in other languages?
Yes, any language that separates words with spaces. The syllable estimate behind the readability score is tuned for English, so treat that figure as rough for other languages.
Can it turn HTML into plain text for a product listing?
Yes. Paste the HTML, press 'HTML → text', and you get clean text with paragraphs and bullet points kept but every tag removed, ready for a marketplace description field that does not accept HTML. 'Text → HTML' goes the other way: paragraphs become <p> tags and bullet lines become a <ul> list, which is what Amazon, eBay and Shopify description editors accept.
Why do my counts differ from Word or Google Docs?
Word counts a hyphenated word as one and a number with spaces as several, and both treat some punctuation differently. Differences are normally one or two words in a thousand.
Free to use, runs in your browser, nothing uploaded. Last updated 2026-10-07. Made by HandyToolkits; questions to [email protected].