Tools · 3 min read
Word Count and Reading Time: How They Are Calculated
Essays, meta descriptions, ad copy, and talks all come with length limits. Counting words seems simple, but different tools disagree — here is why.
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What counts as a word
Most counters split on whitespace, so "well-known" is one word and "e.g." is one word. Numbers and URLs count as words. Languages written without spaces, such as Chinese and Japanese, are counted by characters instead. Small differences between tools usually come down to hyphens, dashes, and punctuation.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time is the word count divided by an average reading speed — usually 200 to 250 words per minute for on-screen text. Speaking time uses about 130 to 150 words per minute, so a five-minute talk is roughly 700 words.
Typical lengths
A tweet is limited to 280 characters, a meta description to around 155, and a typical blog post runs 1,000 to 2,000 words. Character limits on forms and platforms count characters, not words — and some count emoji as two.