Sentence Counter
And The Shape Of Your Writing
This sentence counter reports sentences, paragraphs, words and characters as you type, and shows the shape of your writing. More usefully, it shows how your sentence lengths are spread and which ones run longest.
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Sentence Counter
Sentences, paragraphs and how long each one runs
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Words
- 0
- Characters
- 0
- Without spaces
- 0
- Reading time
- 0s
- Average words
- 0
- Shortest
- 0
- Longest
- 0
- Over the limit
- 0
Mixing lengths is what makes prose readable. A page where every sentence is the same length reads flat, however short they are.
Ready. Paste your text and every count fills in.
The Point of Counting Sentences
Word counts answer a contract. Sentence counts answer a different question, which is whether anybody will get to the end of the paragraph.
Academic style guides, newsroom standards and plain English rules all set limits in sentences rather than words. A press release asks for eight, an abstract for six, a meta description for two.
Beyond those limits, the interesting number is the spread. A page can average eighteen words and still hide a sixty-word monster. So use this sentence counter online whenever the average looks fine and the writing does not.
There is a second reason to count sentences on the web. Readers do not read pages, they scan them, which the Nielsen Norman Group measured in its study of how users read on the web. A scanner meets your first sentence and decides from there.
Deciding Where One Sentence Stops
Splitting on a full stop is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that inflates every count. "Dr. Smith flew to Washington D.C. on Jan. 5." is one sentence, yet a naive split reports four.
This counter checks the word before the stop against a list of real abbreviations, treats a single letter as an initial, and ignores a stop sitting between two digits.
Then it looks at what follows. A sentence has ended when the next thing is a capital, a digit or a quotation mark; a lowercase letter means the stop was part of something else.
Reading The Spread
The five bars group your sentences by length. A healthy page of prose usually spreads across three or four of them, with a few short sentences carrying the rhythm.
If almost everything lands in one bucket, the writing will read flat however short the sentences are. Conversely, a fat bar at the far right is where readers give up.
How Many Sentences A Piece Should Have
A meta description fits two. A product paragraph wants three or four. A press release opening should say who, what and when inside the first two, since editors read no further.
Plain language guidance, including the US federal guidance, keeps coming back to the same advice: one idea per sentence, and one topic per paragraph.
Those are targets rather than rules. Still, if a paragraph runs past six sentences, it is usually two paragraphs that have not been separated yet.
Where Sentence Counts Are Required
Journals set abstract limits in words, and grant forms often set them in sentences. App stores, job boards and directory listings do the same for short descriptions.
Counting by eye is where mistakes creep in, because a semicolon or a quoted line can hide an extra sentence. Therefore a count that applies the same rules every time is worth more than a careful read.
Headings And Bullet Points
A heading has no full stop, so should it count? There is no single right answer, and the bullet switch lets you decide. Leave it on for web copy, turn it off for prose.
Working With the Sentence Counter
Three steps, and the counts appear before you finish the first. After that, the switches tune what counts as a sentence.
- 1
Paste your text
An article, a chapter, an email or a product description. You can also open a plain text file, which is read here in the tab rather than uploaded.
- 2
Set your long-sentence limit
Thirty words is the usual plain English threshold. Journalism often uses twenty-five instead, so the box takes anything from ten to eighty.
- 3
Decide what counts
Keep abbreviations whole so that
Inc.ande.g.never end a sentence early. The bullet switch decides whether a heading counts as one. - 4
Fix the sentences it lists
The longest six appear on the right with their word counts. Therefore you can edit the three that matter instead of rereading everything.
What This Sentence Counter Does Differently
Counting sentences is easy to do badly. These are the places where this one takes the harder path.
Abbreviations do not split
The counter knows titles, months, company suffixes and initials. So a sentence full of them still counts as one sentence.
Decimals stay put
A stop with digits on both sides is part of a number. Without that rule, every price and percentage in your text would add a sentence.
The shortest, the longest and the average sentence
Five buckets show how your lengths spread out. That reading tells you whether the prose has any rhythm at all.
Ten counts at once
Sentences, paragraphs, words, characters with and without spaces, reading time, average, shortest, longest and how many run over your limit.
The same engine as the readability page
Both pages share one sentence splitter. So the two tools can never report different sentence counts for the same paragraph.
Nothing leaves your tab
Unpublished drafts pass through here all day. Since your browser does every count, none of it reaches this site.
Sentence Length Rules Worth Following
Use these Denwix targets as a compass, not a fence. Each one, though, is a habit that editors apply without thinking about it.
- Hold the average below 20 words a sentence. Plain English guidance has landed near this figure for decades. It leaves room for a long sentence when the argument needs one.
- After a long, winding sentence, land the point in a handful of words. That change of pace carries the reader. A five-word sentence after a thirty-word sentence reads as emphasis rather than as an error.
- Break at the conjunction. When a sentence runs long, the easiest cut is usually at
andorbut. Two plain sentences read better than one tangled one. - Watch paragraphs as well. Three to five sentences suits the web. A paragraph of nine reads as a wall on a phone, even when every sentence inside it is short.
- Count before you submit. Journals, grant forms and app stores all set sentence or character limits. Checking first is faster than being sent back.
- Read the longest one aloud. If reading it aloud leaves you breathless, your reader struggles too. That test has survived every writing tool ever built, and it still works.
- Put the main point in the first 15 words. Scanners read the opening and skip the rest. So a paragraph that saves its conclusion for the end is a paragraph most readers never finish.
- Give the opening sentence its own pass. It carries more weight than the rest put together, because a scanner reads it and decides. Keep it under fifteen words and put the subject first.
- Split on the joining word, not the comma. A comma usually marks a pause inside one thought. The word
andorbutmarks the seam where two thoughts were stitched together. - Measure the text before and after editing. Watch how the figure moves between drafts. A rewrite that cuts the average by four words has done something you can point at.
Three Counting Mistakes That Skew Everything
Each of these quietly changes the numbers, so the report looks fine while the reading underneath it is wrong.
Counting headings as sentences
A page with twenty subheadings gains twenty very short sentences. Consequently the average drops and the text looks simpler than it reads.
Breaking the text at each full stop
Abbreviations and decimals both carry stops. A tool without those rules can report half again as many sentences as the text contains.
Chasing the average alone
You can hit eighteen words by pairing sixty with six. So look at the spread before you call a page finished.
Counting a quote as your own sentence
A long quotation lifts the average without saying anything about your writing. Take quotations out before you measure a draft.
Treating a semicolon as a full stop
A semicolon joins two clauses into one sentence, which is why it never splits a count here. If the two halves stand alone, use a full stop instead.
Measuring a page of bullet points
Fragments with no verbs make every average meaningless. Turn the bullet switch off, or paste only the prose you want to judge.
Sentence Counting Questions People Ask
How does this sentence counter handle abbreviations?
It checks the word before each full stop against a list of real abbreviations such as Dr, Inc and Jan. It also treats a single letter as an initial. Both rules keep the sentence whole.
Does a bullet point count as a sentence?
Only with the bullet option ticked. The bullet switch counts a line with no terminator as one sentence, which suits web copy; turn it off when you are measuring continuous prose.
Can I use this sentence counter online for an abstract?
Yes, and it is one of the reasons people open it. Paste the abstract, read the count, and check it against whatever limit the journal or the form has set.
Can I leave headings out of the sentence count?
Turn off the bullet switch. A line with no full stop then stops counting as a sentence, which leaves the averages describing your prose alone.
Which average sentence length reads best?
Between fourteen and twenty words works for most audiences. Technical writing often runs longer, while news copy sits closer to fifteen.
Why is my paragraph count different from my editor?
A paragraph here means a block between blank lines. Editors that treat every line break as a new paragraph report a higher number for the same text.
How does it work out reading time?
It divides your word count by the speed you pick. The default of 238 words a minute comes from a review of silent reading studies, and it suits ordinary prose.
What is the best way to count sentences in a long file?
Paste it in one piece, or open a plain text file with the button. The counter handles a full article without slowing down, and the spread means more on a long text than a short one.
Will the counter treat a question as a sentence?
Yes. A question mark and an exclamation mark both end a sentence here, exactly as a full stop does, and all three are counted the same way.
Why does Word give me a different sentence count?
Because most of them split on every full stop. Abbreviations and decimals then add sentences that are not there, which is the single biggest source of the gap.
Does the text I enter ever leave my own computer?
No. Your browser produces every count, so nothing reaches this site and nothing lands in a log. Shutting the tab wipes everything.
Handy Companions for This Tool
Counting is one part of an edit. These three handle the parts around it.
Readability Score Checker
Five formulas on the same text, with the hard sentences listed.
Open tool →Word Counter
Words, characters and keyword counts as you type.
Open tool →Duplicate Line Remover
Strip repeated rows from a list and keep your order.
Open tool →
Ready To Measure A Draft?
Paste your text, read the spread, and shorten the sentences it lists. The sentence counter is free, needs no account, and keeps every word on your device.