Where the reading-speed default comes from
The 238 words-per-minute default on the Reading Time tab isn't a rounded guess — it comes from a meta-analysis of 190 separate studies covering 18,573 participants, which found an average adult silent-reading speed of 238 wpm for non-fiction (260 wpm for fiction). Individual reading speed varies a lot by person and by how technical the material is, so the field is fully adjustable — treat the default as a well-researched starting point, not a fixed truth about how fast you personally read.
Frequently asked questions
Does this work correctly with non-English text and emoji?
Yes. Word counting recognizes accented letters and non-Latin scripts (Cyrillic, Chinese, and others) as real words, not just plain ASCII text. Character counting is similarly accurate for emoji and other characters that some counters miscount by splitting them into extra pieces internally.
Does the character count include spaces?
Both are shown — "Characters" counts everything exactly as entered, including spaces and punctuation, while "No Spaces" strips whitespace out.
How accurate are the sentence and paragraph counts?
They're a close estimate, not perfect linguistic analysis. Sentences are counted based on terminal punctuation (periods, exclamation points, question marks), which can occasionally miscount things like abbreviations ("Mr. Smith") or ellipses — a known limitation of any simple punctuation-based approach. Paragraphs are counted as blocks of text separated by a blank line.
How do I estimate reading time instead of just counting words?
Switch to the Reading Time tab, enter a word count, and choose or adjust the words-per-minute figure. A 1,500-word article at the average 238 wpm takes about 6 minutes.
References
- How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate Brysbaert, M. (2019). Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047