Free Word Counter for Blog Posts

WordPress

1. Word count is shown in the bottom-left of the editor by default in Gutenberg.
2. For more accurate per-section counts, install the Word Count plugin.
3. Yoast SEO and Rank Math show word count + readability score on each post.
4. Use this counter when copying drafts from external editors before pasting into WordPress.

Google Docs

1. Click Tools > Word count or press Cmd+Shift+C (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+C (PC).
2. Google Docs counts words including hyphenated compounds as single words.
3. Their count typically differs from website counters by 2-5%.
4. Use this counter when transferring drafts to a CMS for accurate per-publish word count.

Notion

1. Notion does not show word count natively in the editor.
2. Click the three-dot menu in any page > Word count to see word count for the entire page.
3. For per-section counts, copy text into this tool.
4. For long-form drafts, install the Notion Word Count extension or paste here.

Ghost

1. Ghost shows word count in the editor sidebar by default under "Article details".
2. Reading time is auto-calculated and displayed in the published post byline.
3. Customize WPM in theme settings if your audience reads slower or faster than average.
4. Use this counter when editing in external tools before pasting into Ghost.

Medium

1. Medium calculates reading time automatically and displays it next to the title on published posts.
2. Word count is not visible in the editor; estimate from the reading time (4-5 min = ~1000 words).
3. For pre-publish drafting, use this counter to check length before pasting.
4. Medium uses 265 WPM, slightly faster than the 230 WPM most other platforms use.

Word count includes HTML tags as words

Cause: Pasting raw HTML source instead of plain text inflates count by 30-50%.

Fix: Paste rendered text only (copy from preview, not source). This tool strips HTML automatically.

Reading time too long because slow reader assumed

Cause: Counter uses 150 WPM (slow) instead of 230 WPM (average) for general web content.

Fix: Use 220-250 WPM for blog content. This tool defaults to 230 WPM. Adjust for technical content.

Sentence count off due to abbreviations

Cause: Periods in abbreviations (Dr., U.S., etc.) are counted as sentence endings, inflating the count.

Fix: Use a smarter tokenizer that recognizes common abbreviations. This tool handles standard cases.

Paragraph count includes empty lines

Cause: Multiple blank lines between paragraphs each count as separate paragraphs.

Fix: Strip consecutive blank lines before counting. This tool does this automatically.

Code blocks counted as readable text

Cause: Programming code with fewer "words" but lots of characters skews count.

Fix: Exclude code blocks from word count or count separately as "code lines". This tool offers a toggle.

Word count does not match Google Docs/Word

Cause: Different counters split contractions, hyphenated words, and numbers differently.

Fix: Standardize on whitespace-split count for consistency. Differences of 2-5% are normal.

Reading time wildly inaccurate for non-English

Cause: WPM rates differ by language: Mandarin ~250 WPM, Spanish ~220, German ~180 due to compound words.

Fix: Set language-specific WPM. For multilingual sites, calibrate per language.

Live count lags during typing of long documents

Cause: JavaScript splits the entire string on every keystroke, slow for documents over 50,000 words.

Fix: Debounce the count by 200ms. This tool optimizes for under 100,000 words; use Word for novels.