Free Word Counter: Why Every Writer Needs One
Count words, characters, sentences, and reading time instantly. Essential for essays, blog posts, social media, and ad copy with strict limits.
Word limits are everywhere: 500-word essays, 280-character tweets, 160-character meta descriptions, 50,000-word NaNoWriMo novels. A word counter is the simplest tool that every writer uses daily — and it should work instantly without friction.
Beyond Simple Word Counting
A good word counter shows more than just the word count. It tracks characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and estimated reading time. This information is critical for different platforms: Twitter cares about characters, Google cares about reading time, professors care about word count.
Common Word Count Requirements
College essays: typically 500–2,000 words. Blog posts for SEO: 1,500–2,500 words for competitive keywords. LinkedIn posts: under 3,000 characters. Twitter/X: 280 characters. Meta descriptions: 150–160 characters. Instagram captions: up to 2,200 characters but 125 visible before 'more'. Google Ads headlines: 30 characters.
Reading Time: The Hidden Metric
The average adult reads at 200–250 words per minute. A 1,500-word blog post takes about 7 minutes to read. Many content management systems display reading time to set reader expectations. Knowing your reading time helps you decide if an article needs to be shortened or expanded.
Count Your Words
The Word Counter on Zerocosttools shows live word, character, sentence, paragraph, and reading time stats as you type or paste. It's free, works instantly, and requires no sign-up. Just paste your text and get your counts.