Free Word Counter

Reading time = word count ÷ reading speed (words per minute). We show three estimates: slow readers at 150 wpm, average readers at 250 wpm, and fast readers at 400 wpm. The average adult reads around 200–250 words per minute, so the "avg" figure is the most commonly used one.

Any sequence of non-whitespace characters separated by spaces or line breaks. Numbers, hyphenated words and contractions each count as one word. Empty lines between paragraphs are not counted.

No — common English stop words (the, is, a, an, and, of, to, in, etc.) are filtered out so you see only meaningful content words in the keyword density list.

For most topics, 1,000–2,000 words gives Google enough content to understand the page thoroughly. Competitive topics often require 2,000–3,000+ words. Thin content under 300 words rarely ranks well. Focus on covering the topic completely rather than hitting an arbitrary number.

Yes — click the "Upload .txt" button and select any plain text file (.txt or .md). The file contents will be loaded into the editor and counted instantly. Note: this tool does not yet support .docx or PDF files — please paste the text manually for those formats.