Sentence Counter
Paste your text to count sentences and paragraphs instantly. You also get words, characters, the average and median sentence length, a length distribution and every long sentence highlighted so you can tighten your writing.
Longest and shortest
Longest: –
Shortest: –
Sentence length distribution
Long sentences highlighted
All sentences
| # | Words | Chars | Sentence |
|---|
How to use the Sentence Counter
- Paste or type your text in the box, or press Sample to try an example.
- Read the counts: sentences, paragraphs, words, characters and averages update as you type.
- Set the long sentence limit (25 words by default) to match your style guide.
- Review the highlights and the distribution chart to find sentences worth splitting.
- Press Count sentences any time, then Copy stats or export every sentence as CSV.
Formulas used
- Average sentence length = total words ÷ number of sentences
- Median sentence length = the middle value of all sentence lengths sorted from shortest to longest (the mean of the two middle values when the count is even)
- Average word length = characters in all words (no spaces or punctuation) ÷ number of words
- Long sentence share = sentences over the threshold ÷ all sentences × 100
Worked example
Take this text of two paragraphs:
Dr. Smith arrived late on Monday. He was tired! Why? Because the train, which usually runs on time, broke down halfway between the two stations and nobody could tell the passengers how long the repair would take.
The second paragraph is short. It has two sentences.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Sentences | 6 (“Dr.” does not end a sentence) |
| Paragraphs | 2 |
| Words | 46 (6 + 3 + 1 + 27 + 5 + 4) |
| Average sentence length | 46 ÷ 6 = 7.7 words |
| Median sentence length | (4 + 5) ÷ 2 = 4.5 words |
| Longest / shortest | 27 words (“Because the train…”) / 1 word (“Why?”) |
| Long sentences (over 25 words) | 1 of 6 = 17% |
Sentence length guidelines
| Average words per sentence | How it reads | Typical for |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | Very easy, can feel choppy | Children's books, ads, UI text |
| 10–15 | Easy | News, blogs, emails |
| 15–20 | Plain English sweet spot | Web pages, reports, essays |
| 20–25 | Fairly hard | Academic and technical writing |
| Over 25 | Hard; readers lose the thread | Legal text, dense academic prose |
To shorten a long sentence, look for “and”, “but”, “which” or a semicolon where it could be split, move side remarks into their own sentence, and cut filler phrases such as “in order to” or “the fact that”.
Frequently asked questions
How does the tool decide where a sentence ends?
It uses your browser's Unicode sentence segmentation (Intl.Segmenter), which ends a sentence at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or line break. On top of that it keeps common abbreviations such as Dr., Mrs., e.g. and initials like J. K. inside the sentence, and treats a heading on its own line as a sentence.
What counts as a paragraph?
By default a paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by a blank line. If your text uses a single line break between paragraphs, choose Every line break. Empty lines are never counted.
What is a good average sentence length?
Plain-language guides usually recommend an average of 15 to 20 words per sentence, with few sentences over 25 to 30 words. Mixing short and long sentences keeps writing lively, so the average matters more than any single sentence.
How is average word length calculated?
The tool adds up the characters in all words, not counting spaces and punctuation, and divides by the number of words. English prose typically averages about 4.5 to 5 characters per word.
Why is the median different from the average?
The median is the middle sentence length when all sentences are sorted. One very long sentence raises the average a lot but barely moves the median, so comparing the two shows whether a few long sentences are skewing the numbers.
Is my text saved or uploaded?
Your text never leaves your device. All counting happens in your browser, and the text is only kept in your browser's local storage so it is still there when you come back.