Word counter for academic writing
Live word, character, sentence and paragraph counts, Flesch readability scores, and progress bars against common abstract limits. Free, in your browser — your text never leaves the page.
Runs in your browser — your text never leaves this page.
| Words | 0 |
| Characters | 0 |
| Characters (no spaces) | 0 |
| Sentences | 0 |
| Paragraphs | 0 |
| Avg. words per sentence | — |
| Reading time | — |
Readability
Paste at least one sentence to score readability.
Common limits
When to use this
Use this when a word limit is the constraint: trimming an abstract to a journal's 250 words, checking a grant summary against the funder's character cap (characters-with-spaces limits are common in EU applications), fitting a conference submission, or watching a thesis chapter's length. The readability scores earn their keep during revision — if your Reading Ease sits below 10, your sentences are probably long enough to lose reviewers, and the score responds immediately as you split them.
What gets counted
- Words: whitespace-separated tokens containing letters or digits — same convention as Word and Google Docs.
- Sentences: terminal punctuation (. ! ?) — abbreviations like "e.g." may add a small overcount.
- Readability: English-calibrated Flesch formulas; scores for other languages are indicative only.
- Reading time: 238 words per minute, the average adult silent-reading rate.
Common mistakes
- Forgetting that references, captions, and tables often count toward the limit — check the journal's definition.
- Optimizing readability scores instead of clarity — the score is a proxy; a Methods section full of necessary terminology will always score "difficult".
- Editing in a separate counter tool and pasting back — write in your manuscript, paste here to check.
Frequently asked questions
How is the word count calculated?
What do the readability scores mean?
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
What are typical academic word limits?
Related free tools
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In Kahubi, the AI rewrites your abstract to the word limit — in your own writing style, keeping the claims your citations support.
Free accounts include AI chat, literature search, and every tool on this site.
Writing the whole paper, not just the abstract?
Kahubi is an AI workspace for research: draft in your style, cite from your own library, compile LaTeX, and keep every version — with word counts live in the editor.