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Sentence and Paragraph Counter
Count sentences and paragraphs as you type. See words per sentence, spot sentences that run too long and check how long each paragraph is. Paste text, upload a document or load a web page.
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Your text
Type, paste, upload a file or load a web page. Results update as you go.
The address is sent to our page reader, which fetches the page and returns its text. Nothing is stored. Pages that need a login, or that block automated visits, cannot be read.
Highlight in the text
Clean up text
Changes can be undone with the Undo button.
Counting rules and speeds
The long sentence limit is a rule of thumb, not a grammar rule. Reading and speaking times are estimates for average readers and speakers.
Sentence analysis
How long your sentences run and how easy they are to read.
Sentence lengths
Your sentences
Show
| No. | Sentence | Words |
|---|
Your sentences will be listed here. Select one to find it in the text.
Reading ease and grade level are estimates based on the Flesch formulas and need at least 30 words of English text. Sentences are found by their ending punctuation, so an unusual abbreviation can add or remove one.
Paragraph analysis
The length of each paragraph in words and sentences.
| No. | Paragraph | Words | Sentences |
|---|
Your paragraphs will be listed here. Select one to find it in the text.
How it works
How this sentence and paragraph counter works
Tools disagree about where a sentence or a paragraph ends, so the same text can get different counts. This counter follows the usual rules, says what they are, and lets you change the paragraph rule.
Sentences
A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis, and at the full stops used in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Arabic. Common abbreviations such as "Dr." and "e.g.", decimals and web addresses do not end one.
Paragraphs
A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by a blank line. If your text puts every paragraph on its own line, switch to Every line break under the counting rules.
Words
A word is a group of letters or numbers between spaces. Dashes, symbols and emoji on their own are not words. Chinese, Japanese and Thai have no spaces, so those counts are an estimate.
Reading and speaking time
Words divided by a typical speed: 238 words a minute for silent reading and 130 for speaking aloud. You can pick slower or faster speeds under the settings.
Readability
The Flesch reading ease score and a US grade level, worked out from sentence length and syllables. They are estimates for English text of at least 30 words.
Sentence length chart
Shows how many sentences fall into each length band, from 1 to 10 words up to 41 or more, so you can see at a glance whether your sentences are mostly short, mostly long or well mixed.
Here is how the counter treats text that is tricky to split:
| Text | Sentences counted | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Smith paid $3.14 on Jan. 5, i.e. about 3.5 dollars. Next sentence! | 2 | Abbreviations such as Dr., Jan. and i.e. and the decimal point in $3.14 do not end a sentence. |
| U.S. officials met on Mar. 3. They agreed. | 2 | U.S. and Mar. are abbreviations. The full stop after the 3 does end the sentence. |
| Wait... what? Really?! Yes. | 4 | An ellipsis, a question mark, a question and exclamation mark together, and a full stop each end a sentence. |
| Visit https://example.com/a.b now. Thanks. | 2 | Dots inside a web address are not sentence endings. |
| He said, “Stop.” Then he left. | 2 | A closing quotation mark stays with the sentence it closes. |
| this has no ending punctuation at all | 1 | Text without ending punctuation is counted as one sentence. |
| यह एक वाक्य है। यह दूसरा है। | 2 | The Hindi danda (।) ends a sentence. |
| 这是第一句。这是第二句。 | 2 | The Chinese and Japanese full stop (。) ends a sentence, with or without a space after it. |
No tool is perfect at this. Sentences are found from their ending punctuation, so an abbreviation that is not on the counter's list can add a sentence, and a sentence that ends without punctuation, such as a heading or a list item, can be merged with the next one. A heading with a blank line around it is counted as its own sentence.
Reference
How many paragraphs does an essay need?
There is no fixed rule, but university writing guides give a useful range. The table below turns it into a rough number of paragraphs for common essay lengths.
| Essay length in words | Paragraphs at 200 to 300 words each |
|---|---|
| 500 | 2 to 3 |
| 1,000 | 3 to 5 |
| 1,500 | 5 to 8 |
| 2,000 | 7 to 10 |
| 3,000 | 10 to 15 |
| 5,000 | 17 to 25 |
The range comes from academic writing guides, which describe a typical academic paragraph as about 200 to 300 words and often four to seven sentences. See the guides from the University of Wollongong and the University of Hull. The totals in the table are worked out by dividing the essay length by 300 and by 200, so they include your introduction and conclusion.
Treat these as a guide. Web writing, fiction, news and emails use much shorter paragraphs, and your teacher or style guide has the final say. Use the Paragraph analysis table to see which of your paragraphs run long.
Guide
How to use the sentence and paragraph counter
- Type or paste your text, choose Upload file (TXT, DOCX, PDF and more), or enter an address under From web page. The counts update as you go.
- Read the sentence and paragraph totals under Results. Select part of the text in the box to count just that part.
- If the paragraph count looks too low, check the hint under the results. Text that uses a single line break between paragraphs can be counted by choosing Every line break.
- Use Highlight in the text to mark sentences over your length limit, or to shade alternate sentences or paragraphs so you can see where each one starts and ends.
- Open Sentence analysis and Paragraph analysis to see the longest sentences first and the length of every paragraph. Select a row to find that sentence or paragraph in your text.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How does the counter decide where a sentence ends?
It looks for ending punctuation: a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis, followed by a space or the end of the text, plus the full stops used in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Arabic. A full stop after a common abbreviation such as Dr., e.g. or Jan., inside a number like 3.14, or inside a web address does not end a sentence. Closing quotation marks and brackets stay with their sentence.
Why is my count different from Word, Google Docs or another counter?
Tools use different rules for abbreviations, ellipses, headings, lists and line breaks, so counts can differ by a few sentences, and some count every empty line or heading as a paragraph. If you have to match a particular tool, check its number against the same text, and leave a little room if you are close to a limit.
Do headings and bullet points count as sentences?
A heading or bullet with a blank line around it is counted as its own paragraph and its own sentence, even without ending punctuation. If headings and list items sit on consecutive lines with no blank lines, they join the text around them, and a line without ending punctuation runs into the next sentence. Choose Every line break under the counting rules to count each line separately.
What counts as a paragraph?
By default, a paragraph is a block of text with a blank line before and after it. Several blank lines in a row count once, and a block with no words in it, such as a line of dashes, is ignored. If every line of your text is a paragraph, for example text copied from a chat or a list, choose Every line break under the counting rules, or use the button in the hint under the results.
What is a long sentence?
There is no grammar rule. The counter marks sentences over a limit you choose, 25 words by default, as a prompt to check whether the sentence carries too many ideas. A long sentence can be perfectly clear, and a short one can be confusing, so use the marker as a nudge rather than a verdict. You can change the limit from 20 to 40 words under the settings.
How many sentences should a paragraph have?
Academic writing guides often describe a paragraph as about four to seven sentences and 200 to 300 words, with one main idea. Articles, emails and web pages usually use shorter paragraphs. The Sentences per paragraph result shows your average, and the paragraph table shows each paragraph, so you can see which ones are much longer or shorter than the rest.
What do reading ease and grade level mean?
Reading ease is the Flesch score: higher means easier, and scores between 60 and 70 are usually considered plain English. The grade level is a US school grade estimate from the same ideas, sentence length and word length in syllables. Both are rough, they work for English only, and syllables are guessed by rules, so use them as a nudge rather than a verdict.
Is my text uploaded or stored?
Counting happens in your browser. Text you type or paste, and files you upload, are never sent anywhere. The one exception is From web page: the address you enter is sent to a small page-reading service that fetches that public page and sends back its text, and it does not save the address or the text. A copy of your text is kept in your browser's local storage so a refresh does not lose your work, and Clear removes it. Like other pages on this site, this page loads advertising and analytics scripts, so avoid pasting highly confidential material into any web page you do not control.
Can I upload a file or count the sentences on a web page?
Yes. Under Upload file, choose a TXT, MD, CSV, HTML, SRT, VTT, RTF, DOCX, ODT or PDF file up to 10 MB. It is read inside your browser and never uploaded. A scanned PDF that holds only images has no text to read. Under From web page, enter an address to load the text of that page, either the main content or the whole page.
Why can't it read some web pages?
The page reader fetches a page the way a simple browser would. It cannot open pages that need a login, sites that refuse automated visits (some large news sites return an error), or pages that add their text with JavaScript after loading. For those, copy the text from the page and paste it into the box.
Does it work for languages other than English?
Sentence and paragraph counts work for any language that ends sentences with punctuation, including Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. The abbreviation list is English, so a language with different abbreviations can be off by a sentence or two. Reading ease and grade level are for English only.
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Last updated: November 2026