WordBench guide
How Many Words Is 500 Characters?
500 characters is about 88 to 100 words with spaces counted: 100 by the typing-test convention of 5 characters per word, 88 by the real English average of 4.7 characters per word plus a trailing space. Counted without spaces, it is about 106 words. Short, common words fit more into 500 characters than long or technical ones do.
Count your own text
The table below gives the general answer. Paste your own text here to get the exact number for it.
There is no single fixed answer, because English words are not a fixed length. Two reference points cover most of what you will see elsewhere online: a round rule of thumb, and a more precise one drawn from real corpus data.
The round version is the typing-test convention: count one “word” as 5 characters, including the space that follows it. It comes from early typing-speed tests, which needed a consistent unit no matter which words were actually typed, and it still underpins most words-per-minute calculators. By that math, 500 characters is 500 ÷ 5 = 100 words. The more precise version uses the real average English word length, about 4.7 characters, or 5.7 with the trailing space, which puts 500 characters closer to 500 ÷ 5.7 ≈ 88 words.
Paste this paragraph into the counter above: “WordBench counts words the way a reader actually would. A word is any run of non-whitespace characters, so contractions like can't and hyphenated terms like state-of-the-art each count as one. Paste a paragraph, a caption, or a full draft and the totals update instantly, without a button to click or a server in between.”
The counter reports 321 characters with spaces, 268 without, and 54 words, a ratio of 5.94 characters per word here, a little above both estimates because of longer terms like non-whitespace. That gap is normal: the 100-word and 88-word figures above are averages, and your own text will land somewhere near them depending on the words you actually use.
How many words is 500 characters on average?
On average, 500 characters holds about 88 words of English, spaces included. The average English word is 4.7 characters long in Garbe's corpus analysis, and in running text each word also takes the space after it, so a word costs about 5.7 characters: 500 ÷ 5.7 = 87.7, which rounds to 88.
The 100-word figure is a definition rather than an average: typing tests fix a word at exactly 5 characters so that scores stay comparable whatever was typed. That makes 88 the better estimate for ordinary prose and 100 the round figure to quote. Text built from short words can pass 100, and text heavy with long technical terms falls below 88, which is why the counter above is the only way to get the number for your own text.
How many words is 500 characters with spaces and without spaces?
With spaces, every word also uses up the space that follows it, so 500 characters is about 88 to 100 words: 88 at the English average of 5.7 characters per word including its space, and 100 by the 5-character typing-test rule.
Without spaces, a word costs only its own letters, about 4.7 characters on average, so 500 characters is 500 ÷ 4.7 = 106.4, or about 106 words. Punctuation still counts toward a total without spaces, so real text with commas and full stops lands a little under that.
A limit of 500 characters without spaces therefore leaves room for about 18 more words than a limit of 500 characters with spaces (106 against 88). When a form or an assignment does not say which one it means, plan for the lower figure. The counter above shows both totals side by side.
Characters to words, from 100 to 5,000 characters
Each cell is the character count divided by the figure in its column heading, rounded to the nearest whole word.
| Characters | With spaces, ÷ 5 (typing-test rule) | With spaces, ÷ 5.7 (English average) | Without spaces, ÷ 4.7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 20 words | 18 words | 21 words |
| 150 | 30 words | 26 words | 32 words |
| 200 | 40 words | 35 words | 43 words |
| 250 | 50 words | 44 words | 53 words |
| 300 | 60 words | 53 words | 64 words |
| 500 | 100 words | 88 words | 106 words |
| 1,000 | 200 words | 175 words | 213 words |
| 1,500 | 300 words | 263 words | 319 words |
| 2,000 | 400 words | 351 words | 426 words |
| 2,500 | 500 words | 439 words | 532 words |
| 3,000 | 600 words | 526 words | 638 words |
| 4,000 | 800 words | 702 words | 851 words |
| 5,000 | 1,000 words | 877 words | 1,064 words |
The without-spaces column reads the character count as letters and punctuation only, as when a form asks for characters without spaces. Punctuation counts toward that total, so real text usually lands a little under the figure shown.
Frequently asked questions
How many words is 500 characters on average? About 88 words. The average English word is 4.7 characters, or 5.7 with the space after it, and 500 ÷ 5.7 rounds to 88. The typing-test rule of 5 characters per word gives a rounder 100, which is a convention rather than a measured average.
How many words is 500 characters on average?
About 88 words. The average English word is 4.7 characters, or 5.7 with the space after it, and 500 ÷ 5.7 rounds to 88. The typing-test rule of 5 characters per word gives a rounder 100, which is a convention rather than a measured average.
How many words is 500 characters with spaces?
About 88 to 100 words when spaces count toward the 500: 88 at the English average of 5.7 characters per word including its space, and 100 by the 5-character typing-test rule. Without spaces, the same 500 characters holds about 106 words (500 ÷ 4.7).
How many words can you get in 500 characters?
Usually 88 to 100 words if the limit counts spaces, or about 106 if it does not. Short, common words let you fit more and long technical terms fit fewer, so paste your draft into the counter above to see exactly where it lands.
How long is 500 characters?
About 88 to 100 words of English with spaces counted. Read silently at the adult average of 238 words per minute for non-fiction (Brysbaert, 2019), that takes about 22 to 25 seconds.
What is 500 characters in words?
500 characters is about 88 words using the measured English average, or 100 words using the typing-test convention, both with spaces counted. The table above converts every common length from 100 to 5,000 characters the same way.
Does 500 characters include spaces?
In this guide it does, unless a heading says otherwise: the 88 and 100 figures count the space that follows each word as part of its length, and the without-spaces column gives the figure when spaces are left out. The character counter always shows characters with spaces and without side by side, since some limits, like many SMS and form fields, count every character while others do not.
Why isn't there one exact number of words in 500 characters?
Because words are not a fixed length. A sentence full of short, common words fits more into 500 characters than one built from long or technical terms. The two figures above, 100 and 88 words, are estimates from two different conventions, not a hard rule.
What is the fastest way to get an exact count?
Paste your actual text into the word counter above. It reports your real word and character counts as you type, which is exact for your text rather than an average across all English.
How many words is 1,000 or 2,000 characters?
With spaces counted, 1,000 characters is about 175 to 200 words, and 2,000 characters is about 351 to 400 words. The full table above covers 100 to 5,000 characters, with and without spaces.
Sources
- Words per minute (5-character word convention), Wikipedia
- The average word length in English is 4.7 characters
- Brysbaert (2019), How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate, Journal of Memory and Language
The counting rules behind every figure on this page are written out on the methodology page, including the ones that are conventions rather than measurements.