Word & Character Counter — Live Counts for Any Limit
Live word and character count with sentence/paragraph stats and platform limits: X/Twitter, meta description, SMS, essay lengths. Counts as you type. Free.
Every platform has a limit and every limit counts differently: X counts 280 characters (but URLs as 23), meta descriptions truncate around 155–160, SMS segments at 160. This counter tracks characters, words, sentences, and paragraphs live as you type, against the limit you select.
It also flags the numbers editors ask for: reading time estimate and average word length. Paste or type — the counting is instant and local.
100% in-browser · no upload · no signup · nothing you paste or drop here leaves your device
Character Counter & Text Analyzer
Count characters, words, sentences, estimate reading time, analyze SEO metrics, and detect multi-language characters. 100% local.
This tool runs 100% in your browser. All computation happens locally on your device — your input is never uploaded to any server. Results are for reference only.
From raw text to reading time — the counting pipeline — illustrated
Counting is a pipeline, not a single number. Characters are counted per Unicode code point (with a no-space variant); words are split on whitespace; sentences on terminal punctuation; reading time is words ÷ 238 words-per-minute and speaking time is words ÷ 130 WPM. The language view buckets every character as CJK, Latin, digit, emoji, punctuation or whitespace, while the SEO view scores title and meta-description lengths against Google's ~60 / ~160 character truncation plus Flesch readability. UTF-8 bytes are a separate, larger number than visible characters — CJK and emoji encode wider.
Left: the raw text is split by character, by whitespace and by terminal punctuation, then time estimates divide word counts by reading (238 WPM) and speaking (130 WPM) speeds. Right: the language view buckets every character by script, and the SEO view checks title/meta lengths against Google truncation.
Amara, a newsletter editor, has a 1,204-character draft and needs to know how long it will take to read and whether the subject line will survive Google's truncation.
- Paste the draft:1,204 chars, 187 words, 14 sentences — the raw counts
- Reading time:187 ÷ 238 WPM ≈ 0m 47s at the average adult reading speed
- SEO pass:Title 58/~60 chars and meta 152/~160 pass; Flesch 64 = plain English
- Language mix:Mostly Latin with a couple of emoji — UTF-8 bytes exceed visible characters
About this word counter
This page covers character count online, letter count for essay, meta description length checker, twitter character limit counter — all the same underlying task as word counter. The tool above is FreeToolHub's char counter embedded in full: every feature works right here, and nothing you process is uploaded to any server.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a meta description be?
Google truncates around 155–160 characters on desktop (fewer on mobile), so front-load the value proposition in the first 120. Longer descriptions are not penalized — they are just cut off mid-sentence in search results, which costs clicks. The counter shows the truncation point as you write.
Do spaces count as characters?
Platform-dependent: X counts most characters including spaces but renders URLs and images as fixed 23 characters; SMS counts every character and switches to a 70-character segment when you use non-GSM characters (emoji, accents). Select the platform limit and the counter applies its specific rules.