Social media limits
Live check against the platforms people paste into most.
Most used words
What counts as a word
A word is any run of characters separated by whitespace. "Well-known" counts as one word, "e.g." counts as one, and a number like "1,500" counts as one. This matches how Word, Google Docs and most editors count, so the number you see here is the number your teacher or editor will see.
Characters are counted two ways because different platforms care about different things: Twitter/X counts every character including spaces, while some form fields ignore them.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, the average for silent reading of general prose in adults. Speaking time assumes 130 words per minute, a comfortable presentation pace — news anchors run nearer 150, and conference talks nearer 110.
Useful anchors when you are writing to a time slot:
| Slot | Roughly |
|---|---|
| 1 minute speech | 130 words |
| 3 minute speech | 390 words |
| 5 minute speech | 650 words |
| 10 minute talk | 1,300 words |
| 20 minute conference talk | 2,200–2,600 words |
Word counts worth knowing
- Meta description — 150–160 characters
- SEO page title — 55–60 characters
- Instagram bio — 150 characters
- Tweet — 280 characters
- YouTube description — 5,000 characters
- Blog post that ranks — 1,000–2,000 words
- School essay — 500–1,000 words
- College paper — 1,500–3,000 words
- Cover letter — 250–400 words
Frequently asked questions
How many words is a 5 minute speech?
How long does it take to read 1000 words?
Does the counter include spaces?
Is my text sent anywhere?
How many pages is my text?
Related tools
Guides for this tool
How Many Pages Is 1000 Words? A Straight Answer, Plus the Variables
1000 words is about 2 pages single-spaced or 4 double-spaced — but font, size and margins move that more than …
How to Write an Instagram Bio That Actually Converts
You have 150 characters and about two seconds. Here is the four-line structure that works, and the formatting …