Draft control · repetition · timing
Word Counter
Count a draft as you type, measure it against a word target, and see the repetitions and timing estimates that a bare total leaves out.
Private browser tool
Paste or type your draft
Your text stays here. Counting happens in this browser tab. This utility has no text-submission endpoint, does not add text to the URL, and does not save a draft in browser storage.
Live result
words
Add text to begin counting.
- Unique words
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Characters
- 0
- Without whitespace
- 0
- Average word
- 0 chars
- Reading time
- 0 min
- Speaking time
- 0 min
Draft target
Set the word limit or goal you are writing towards.
500 words to go
Most-used words
Case-insensitive counts, with the first spelling retained for display.
| Word | Uses | Share |
|---|
Type a draft to see its most-used words.
This word counter treats a run of letters or numbers as one word and keeps an internal apostrophe or hyphen with it. That means “don’t” and “evidence-based” each count once. It also reports unique words, repeated terms, characters, paragraphs, sentences, reading time, and speaking time — all without sending the draft away from this browser tab.
The counting rule
What this word counter calls a word
Word-count tools can disagree because punctuation creates judgement calls. This counter uses a stated, repeatable rule aimed at English prose: a word is a sequence of Unicode letters or numbers, optionally joined by an internal apostrophe or hyphen. Capitalisation does not affect the total.
Kept together
Can’t, mother-in-law, twenty-one, and re-enter each count as one. The joiner must sit between letters or numbers; a dash used between clauses does not join words.
Split apart
Spaces, line breaks, slashes, underscores, and sentence punctuation separate tokens. In an email address or web address, punctuation separates the components, so this is not an application-specific social-media or form validator.
Not counted as words
Standalone emoji, symbols, and punctuation add characters but not words. A run of digits does count once because dates, measurements, and numbered references are meaningful tokens in ordinary drafts.
Beyond the total
Use the secondary counts to edit, not just comply
A target answers “how much is left?” The other measures answer different questions. Unique-word count is the number of case-insensitive word forms, not a claim about vocabulary quality. The most-used table preserves the first spelling you typed but groups later capitalisation variants together.
Repetition is not automatically a fault. Function words need to recur, and a technical term may need consistent naming. The table is best used to notice an unexpectedly repeated filler, an overworked transition, or accidental variation in a key term. Read the sentences before replacing anything.
Practical workflow
A three-pass way to use the report
- Draft first. Set the real brief or submission limit, then write without trimming each sentence as it arrives.
- Shape the argument. Use paragraph and sentence counts to find sections that are carrying too much or too little of the whole.
- Check repetition last. Review frequently used words in context. Keep necessary terminology; revise only repetition that makes the prose dull, vague, or ambiguous.
Language limitation: the boundary rule is designed for languages that normally separate words with spaces. A continuous passage in Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or another script without regular spaces may be counted as a small number of long tokens and needs a language-specific segmenter.
Questions, answered
Word counter FAQ
Do hyphenated words count as one or two?
One when a hyphen directly joins word characters, so long-term counts once. A spaced dash between phrases does not join them. Publishers and institutions sometimes set a different house rule, so use their official counter for a binding submission limit.
Does the word counter save what I type?
No. The controller reads the text in the current page, calculates the statistics locally, and discards them when the page is closed or cleared. It uses neither a submission request nor local browser storage.
Why might Microsoft Word or Google Docs show another total?
Each editor owns its tokenisation rules for dashes, URLs, emoji, footnotes, hidden text, and document structure. This page explains its rule so the result is reproducible, but a submission system's own number remains the authoritative one for that system.
Are reading and speaking times exact?
No. They divide the word count by 200 and 130 words per minute respectively. Use them for rough planning, then rehearse aloud when timing matters.
What does “unique words” mean here?
It means distinct normalised spellings. Case variants are combined, as are straight and curly apostrophes in the same position. It does not merge inflections such as write, writes, and writing, and it is not a vocabulary-size test.