How it works
Words are counted by splitting on whitespace, characters by string length,
paragraphs by blank lines, and sentences by runs of text ending in .,
! or ?. Reading time comes from dividing the word count by 200 words
per minute, a commonly cited average adult silent-reading speed.
Why the sentence count is approximate
Splitting sentences on punctuation alone cannot tell an end-of-sentence period from one in “Dr.”, “e.g.”, or “3.14”. For most prose the count is accurate; text heavy with abbreviations or decimals will read a little high.
Common uses
Checking a post against a platform’s character limit, estimating how long an article will take to read, or getting a quick sense of a document’s length before editing it down.