WordCount
Word counter & readability
Longest sentences
Most used words
How the readability score works
The grade shown is Flesch–Kincaid, which estimates the US school year needed to read a text comfortably. It is calculated from two things only: average sentence length, and average syllables per word. Shorter sentences and shorter words lower the grade.
Most general-audience writing aims for grade 8–10. Technical documentation often sits at 12–14, which is fine for its readers. Below grade 6 tends to read as clipped rather than clear.
Treat it as a smoke alarm, not a judge. Because it counts syllables and full stops and nothing else, it cannot see whether a sentence is ambiguous — and it will happily award a good score to fluent nonsense. The list of longest sentences above is usually more actionable than the number itself.
How words and characters are counted
Words are runs separated by whitespace, so hyphenated compounds count once and "it's" counts once. Characters are counted two ways, with and without spaces, because the limit you are writing against might mean either — a meta description budget counts every space, a database column usually does too, and word-processor character counts often do not.
Reading time assumes 220 words per minute, roughly the average silent reading speed for adult non-fiction.
Common length limits
Page title: about 60 characters before search results truncate it. Meta description: about 155. Post on X: 280. LinkedIn headline: 220. SMS: 160 for a single segment.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type, paste or open is sent to util.quest or anywhere else — there is no upload and no request to make one. You can disconnect from the network and it will keep working.
More than a counter: words, characters, sentences and reading time, plus a readability grade and a list of the specific sentences dragging it down. Useful for tightening documentation, landing page copy and anything with a length limit.
It's one of the free tools in the util.quest collection — nothing to install, and no account needed. Found a bug or want a feature? Reach out at [email protected].
