Word Counter

The counter uses a regex-based whitespace tokenizer that splits text on whitespace boundaries — the same method used by Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Any sequence of non-whitespace characters counts as one word. Character counts are raw string length; the "No Spaces" count strips all whitespace first. Everything updates on every single keystroke with zero delay.

Completely safe. Every calculation runs 100% in your browser using client-side JavaScript. Your text never leaves your device — no server request is ever made. Open your browser's Network tab while typing and you will see zero requests fired. Confidential documents, legal contracts, and private notes are all safe to paste here.

Reading time uses the average adult silent reading speed of 238 words per minute (WPM) — the scientifically validated average from multiple large-scale studies. Speaking time uses 130 WPM, the standard natural speech delivery rate. A 500-word article takes approximately 2 minutes to read and 4 minutes to speak aloud.

Keyword density is the percentage of times a specific word appears relative to total word count. It matters for SEO — search engines use prominent terms to determine page relevance. Too low means a keyword isn't featured enough; too high means "keyword stuffing" which can hurt rankings. The ideal density for any target keyword is 1–3% for most SEO strategies.

Stop words are common function words that carry little meaningful content — words like "the", "and", "is", "in", "a", "to", "of". They appear in almost every sentence and would dominate the keyword density list, making it useless. By filtering them out, the keyword panel surfaces only the meaningful, topic-relevant terms that define what your content is actually about. You can toggle this filter on/off in the options strip.

Reading level is estimated using simplified Flesch-Kincaid readability principles — analyzing average words per sentence (complexity) and average characters per word (vocabulary difficulty):

• Basic — short sentences, simple everyday vocabulary
• Middle School — moderate complexity, under 10 words/sentence avg
• High School — longer sentences, above-average vocabulary
• College Graduate — complex, academic-style writing

Word count targets vary significantly by content type:

• Blog posts — 1,500–2,500 words for competitive SEO topics
• Landing pages — 500–1,000 words, focused and conversion-oriented
• Product descriptions — 150–300 words with clear benefits
• Long-form pillar content — 3,000–8,000+ words
• News articles — 300–800 words for timely coverage

Key principle: cover the topic completely rather than hitting an arbitrary target number.

Use the character counter to hit platform limits precisely:

• X / Twitter — 280 characters per post
• Instagram caption — 2,200 chars (125 shown before "more")
• LinkedIn post — 3,000 chars (210 shown before "see more")
• Google meta description — 155–160 characters for SEO
• Google meta title — 50–60 characters to avoid truncation
• YouTube description — 5,000 characters max
• SMS message — 160 characters per segment

Different tools use different tokenization rules, causing slight variations:

• Hyphenated words — is "well-written" one word or two?
• Contractions — does "don't" count as one word or two?
• Numbers and codes — is "2024" counted as a word?
• URLs and emails — treated as one token or multiple?

This tool follows the whitespace-split method — any sequence of non-space characters = one word, matching how MS Word and Google Docs work.

Character, sentence, and paragraph counts work accurately for any language. The word counter works for any space-delimited language including Spanish, French, German, Urdu, and Arabic. However, keyword density and reading level features are optimized for English — the stop word list and complexity heuristics are English-based and will produce less meaningful results for other languages.

Simply copy and paste only that specific portion of text into the input area. The counter instantly analyzes whatever is in the text box — so isolate a paragraph, a heading section, or a call-to-action block and paste it in. Hit the Clear button between sections to reset. This is especially useful for checking individual section word counts for SEO content briefs or editorial guidelines.

100% free — forever. No account, no signup, no credit card, no usage limits, no watermarks. Open the page and start typing immediately. All Zlvox tools are freely accessible to everyone — writers, developers, students, SEO specialists, and content marketers alike.