Essay Word Count & Reading Time Estimator
Paste or type your essay below to instantly get word count, character count, sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading and speaking times.
Average silent reading speed is ~238 wpm; average speaking speed is ~130 wpm.
Formulas Used
Word Count: Count of whitespace-delimited tokens in the text.
Character Count: Total characters with and without whitespace.
Sentence Count: Segments ending in . ! ?
Paragraph Count: Blocks of text separated by one or more blank lines.
Reading Time (seconds):
Reading Time = (Word Count ÷ Reading Speed WPM) × 60
Speaking Time (seconds):
Speaking Time = (Word Count ÷ 130 WPM) × 60
Flesch Reading Ease Score:
Score = 206.835 − 1.015 × (Words ÷ Sentences) − 84.6 × (Syllables ÷ Words) Where: ASL = Average Sentence Length = Words ÷ Sentences ASW = Average Syllables per Word = Syllables ÷ Words
Score ranges: 90–100 Very Easy · 70–90 Easy · 60–70 Standard · 50–60 Fairly Difficult · 30–50 Difficult · 0–30 Very Confusing
Assumptions & References
- Default silent reading speed of 238 wpm is based on Brysbaert (2019), "How many words do we read per minute?" — a meta-analysis of 190 studies.
- Average speaking/presentation speed of 130 wpm is a widely cited figure for clear, deliberate speech (Tindall-Ford et al., 1997).
- Syllable counting uses a vowel-group heuristic (silent trailing e removed, then vowel clusters counted). This is an approximation; edge cases (e.g., "the", "fire") may vary by ±1 syllable.
- The Flesch Reading Ease formula was published by Rudolf Flesch in The Art of Readable Writing (1948) and is the industry standard for readability assessment.
- Sentence detection splits on
. ! ?punctuation; abbreviations (e.g., "Dr.", "U.S.") may slightly inflate sentence counts. - Paragraphs are detected by blank-line separation, consistent with standard essay formatting.
- Results update live as you type; no server-side processing — all calculations run in your browser.