WordBench tool
Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and reading time as you type.
Keyword density
Type at least a few words and the most frequent terms will appear here, filler words aside.
About the word counter
The WordBench word counter gives you a live, honest count of everything in your text the moment you type or paste it. Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading time, and speaking time all update in real time, with no button to press and nothing sent to a server.
Counting words sounds simple until you actually need it to be right. A word is any run of non-whitespace characters, so hyphenated terms and contractions count the way a human would read them. Characters are counted twice, once including spaces and once without, because different limits care about different things. A tweet cares about every character; an essay word count usually does not.
Everything runs client side. Your draft never leaves the browser tab, which matters when the text is a cover letter, a private journal entry, or an unpublished manuscript. Close the tab and it is gone. That privacy is the whole point of a tool you can trust with a first draft.
Who uses it
Worked example
Paste a short paragraph such as: "Acme Robotics shipped its first home assistant this spring. Early reviews from Globex testers were warm, if a little cautious."
WordBench reports 22 words, 129 characters, 108 characters without spaces, 2 sentences, and roughly a 6 second read. The keyword panel surfaces the meaningful terms and skips filler words like the and its, so the density figures reflect what the text is actually about.
Frequently asked questions
How is reading time calculated?
Reading time assumes an average silent reading speed of 238 words per minute, a figure drawn from published reading research for adult readers of general prose. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, closer to a comfortable presentation pace. Both are estimates and scale linearly with your word count.
What counts as a word?
A word is any unbroken run of non-whitespace characters. So can't is one word, state-of-the-art is one word, and a stray emoji surrounded by spaces counts as one. This matches how a reader would tally the text out loud.
What is keyword density and why does it matter?
Keyword density is how often a term appears as a percentage of total words. It is a rough signal for SEO and readability. Very high density on a single term can read as keyword stuffing, while a natural spread of related terms usually reads better to both people and search engines.
Is my text stored or uploaded anywhere?
No. The counter runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is sent to a server, logged, or saved. Refresh the page and the text is cleared.
Does it count characters with or without spaces?
Both, side by side. Character limits on some platforms include spaces and some do not, so WordBench always shows you the two numbers together.