A word counter for posts, not just essays. Count it, see where it fits.

What this word counter counts

Paste anything and the numbers update as you type:

• Words. Runs of letters or numbers between spaces and punctuation. “Long-term” is one word, “2026” is one word, and an emoji on its own is not a word.

• Characters, with and without spaces, since some forms count one and some the other.

• Sentences and paragraphs. A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. A paragraph is a block of text that starts on a new line.

• Reading time and speaking time, based on published research rather than a round guess.

• Fit checks for a tweet, a LinkedIn post, a LinkedIn headline and a Twitter bio.

How reading time and speaking time are worked out

A common rule of thumb says people read 300 words a minute. A 2019 review of 190 studies with 18,573 readers, by Ghent University psychologist Marc Brysbaert, found adults reading English non-fiction silently average about 238 words a minute, and about 183 when reading aloud. Fiction reads a little faster, at about 260. This word counter uses 238 for reading time and 183 for speaking time, so 1,000 words takes roughly 4 minutes 12 seconds to read and 5 minutes 28 seconds to say out loud.

Treat both as averages. Dense, technical text reads slower than a light post. The speaking figure is handy for scripts too: a 60-second video at 183 words a minute is about 180 words.

Words versus characters on social platforms

Social platforms set limits in characters, not words, and they do not all count the same way. Twitter allows 280 characters but counts every link as 23 and every emoji as 2. LinkedIn allows 3,000 in a post, 220 in a headline and 2,600 in an About section. A word count alone cannot tell you if a post fits, so this tool checks the character limits too. For an exact Twitter count, use the Twitter character counter. For every LinkedIn field, use the LinkedIn character counter.

Getting more from a word counter online

• Cut by sentence, not by word. If you are 40 words over, removing one weak sentence usually beats trimming ten small words.

• Watch average sentence length. It is a quick read on how heavy a draft feels. The readability checker goes further and scores how easy the text is to read.

• Check the hook on its own. Paste just your first line to see how short it really is.

• Keep the word counter tool open while you edit. Nothing is uploaded, so drafts stay on your device.

Length is a number. Voice is the point.

Hitting a word count is easy. Making every one of those words sound like you is the hard part, and it is the part VoiceMoat is built for. VoiceMoat is a Personal Brand OS for creators on Twitter and LinkedIn. audenAI, the brain inside it, learns from your own content, then drafts posts, threads, replies and comments in your voice and checks drafts so they sound like you, at the length each platform allows. Not sure a draft already reads like a person? Run it through the free AI detector, then see what Studio does with your next idea.