Word Counter

A free word counter that respects your draft

PocketWebTools' word counter is a fast, private way to count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and GPT tokens in any block of text — anything from a tweet to a thesis. It runs entirely in your browser, so your draft is never uploaded, logged or stored on a server. There is no signup, no paywall and no character limit.

The tool is built for writers, students, marketers, editors, prompt engineers and anyone who needs to fit text into a specific limit. If you have ever stared at a 280-character tweet box, a 160-character meta description or a 4,000-token prompt window and wondered how much room you actually have left, this page is for you.

How to use it

1. Paste or type your text into the textarea on the left. The counts on the right update instantly with each keystroke.
2. Set a writing goal (in words) using the goal control. A progress ring fills as you write so you can see at a glance how close you are to a target essay length, blog post or chapter.
3. Watch the social-media indicators for Twitter (280), Facebook (250) and Google's recommended meta description length (300). They turn warning colours as you cross the limit.
4. Use the toolbar to convert case (UPPER, lower, Title, Sentence), find & replace, or strip extra whitespace and blank lines with the "clean text" action.
5. Check the keyword panel on the right for the most important phrases in your draft, extracted by an in-browser embedding model. Useful for SEO copy and quick density checks.

What you can measure

The tool tracks the metrics you would expect from a classic word counter — words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs — and a few extras worth calling out:

• GPT tokens using OpenAI's o200k_base tokenizer (the one GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini use). Loaded as WebAssembly so the count matches what the API would bill, with no calls to OpenAI.
• Reading time at 200 words per minute and speaking time at 130 words per minute — the standard rates editors and presentation coaches use.
• Unique words, average word length, longest sentence and keyword density for quick stylistic spot-checks.
• Sentence-flow heatstrip visualising the length of each sentence, so you can catch monotonous rhythm before a reader does.

Common use cases

• Students & academics — fit an essay inside a 1,500 / 2,500 / 5,000-word limit, count abstract words, plan thesis chapters.
• Writers & bloggers — hit a daily word target, gauge reading time for a post, audit sentence rhythm.
• SEO & marketing — keep meta titles under 60 characters, descriptions under 160, and write at a target length Google is known to favour for long-form content.
• Social media — stay inside Twitter's 280-character cap, Instagram bios at 150, LinkedIn headlines at 220.
• Prompt engineers — size a prompt against a model's context window before paying for inference, count tokens for system prompts, fewshot examples and tool descriptions.
• Speakers & presenters — estimate how long a script will take to deliver out loud.

Private by design

Most online word counters send your text to their server to do the count, which means your unpublished writing — drafts, client briefs, internal memos — passes through a third party. PocketWebTools is built the other way around: every count, every token, every keyword runs as JavaScript inside your tab. There is no API call, no log, no analytics on the contents of the textarea. We could not see your draft if we wanted to.

Frequently asked questions

Is this word counter free?

Yes — entirely free, with no ads, no signup, and no usage limits. Paste as much text as you want, as often as you want. The whole tool is a single static page, so there is nothing to log in to and nothing to subscribe to.

Does my text get sent to a server?

No. The word counter, character counter, sentence/paragraph parser, reading-time estimator and GPT token counter all run inside your browser using JavaScript. Your text never leaves the device — we cannot see it, and there is no upload step.

How are GPT tokens counted?

We use OpenAI's o200k_base tokenizer (the same one used by GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini), loaded as WebAssembly directly in your browser. The token count you see is what OpenAI's API would charge for the same input, so you can size prompts before paying for them.

Are GPT tokens the same as Claude or Gemini tokens?

Close, but not identical. Anthropic and Google use their own tokenizers, and Anthropic does not currently ship a public JavaScript tokenizer. For typical English prose the GPT-4o count is within roughly 5% of Claude's count, which is usually close enough for prompt sizing — treat it as a strong estimate, not a billing oracle.

How is reading time calculated?

Reading time uses 200 words per minute, the average for adult silent reading of general-interest prose. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a common rate for unhurried presentation delivery. Both are estimates — your audience and material can shift the real number meaningfully.

What counts as a word?

Anything separated by whitespace, after collapsing repeated spaces. Hyphenated compounds like 'state-of-the-art' count as one word. Numbers count as words. Emoji and standalone punctuation do not.

Does it work offline?

Yes, after the first visit. The page and tokenizer cache in the browser, so subsequent visits load instantly and continue to work without a network connection.

Can I save my work?

Your draft, writing goal and active filter are stored in your browser's localStorage and restored automatically when you come back. Nothing is uploaded. Clearing site data in your browser will reset it.