Word Counter & Reading Time Calculator

When writing a blog post, essay or presentation, the tool can be used by entering your text into the text box. From there, the word count and character count are displayed below the text box. Digital marketers can use the character count to preview a page title or description and ensure it is optimised for Google.

The second part of the tool allows you to pick a reading speed Slower Speed (150 wpm), Average Speed (250 wpm) or Faster Speed (350 wpm) and create an estimated reading and speaking time. This way, marketers can perceive how long it will take to read the text during a time-restricted meeting or presentation.

The word is primarily counted by splitting the text with each space. After that, a few types of content are removed from the count as we do not regard them as words.

For example, spaces at the start and end of the text block, line breaks, double spaces and special characters such as dashes are all removed from the word count.

The reading time is calculated by dividing the word count by the average reading speed of 250 words per minute (wpm). For example, 3,000 words divided by 250 wpm equals 12 minutes of reading time.

The speaking time is calculated by multiplying the reading time by 1.3 as the average person reads aloud 1.3 times slower than they can read silently. For example, a reading time of 12 minutes multiplied by 1.3 equals a reading time of 15 minutes and 36 seconds.

In terms of digital marketing, it is important to monitor the word or character total when using applications that have a word or character limit. Alternatively, the word count can be used to check academic papers contain the minimum number of words.

For example, social media companies have a character limit when writing new posts on their platform. In addition, search engines such as Google have a character limit on their SERP title and description. Any content longer than the limit will be cut off and users will not get to see all of the content you want to provide.

It is therefore very important to ensure the most important part of your message can be read easily on social media or on search engines. This way, you are more likely to grab the attention of customers and direct them towards your website.

A good way of showing respect to the reader is by informing the reader approximately how much of their time will be taken up by reading your blog post, essay or presentation. It can also lead to better engagement by confirming that the user has time to read the content in full or allowing users to bookmark the content until a better time is available.

Similarly, the speaking time can be used to estimate the duration of a presentation or meeting. This can be particularly useful when the meeting or presentation must be completed within a specific timeframe.

The Google SERP title does not have a strict word or character limit. Instead, Google uses a 600px width for the SERP title.

This is approximately 50 to 60 characters, depending on the characters used.

The Google SERP description does not have a strict word or character limit. Instead, Google uses a 920px width for the SERP description. This is approximately 150 to 160 characters, depending on the characters used.

Please note the width on mobile is 680px, which is approximately 110 to 120 characters.

The longest character limits of major social media companies is a Facebook post with 63,206 characters.
Below that, the character limit of TikTok and Twitter posts are 4,000 characters. Previously, Twitter was limited to 280 characters until 2023.

Next, the character limit of a LinkedIn post is 3,000 characters. In addition, 2,200 characters is the character limit of an Instagram post. Micro messages sent on Snapchat are limited to 31 characters.

In terms of messaging apps, the character limit of a WhatsApp message is 1,024 characters. Another messaging app, iMessage does not have an official character limit but errors start to occur at around 20,000 characters.