Sentence Counter
Count how many sentences your text contains and how long they are on average. Good for checking readability, school assignments and writing limits.
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How the Sentence Counter works
A sentence ends at a full stop, exclamation mark, question mark or ellipsis that is followed by a space or the end of the text. For Chinese and Japanese, the marks 。！？ end a sentence even without a following space. Closing quotes and brackets stay with their sentence, so “Stop.” counts once.
The counter does not split after common abbreviations (Mr., Dr., e.g., i.e., U.S.), after single-letter initials such as J. K. Rowling, inside decimal numbers like 3.14, or after list numbers like “1.”. A blank line also ends a sentence, so a heading without a final full stop is counted separately from the paragraph below it.
Writing in lowercase still works: “ok. see you soon” is two sentences. The one known limitation is an abbreviation that is not in the built-in list followed by a space, which will be read as a sentence end.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the box.
- Read the sentence count and the average number of words per sentence.
- Scan the list of sentences to spot very long ones that could be split.
Example
Abbreviations, quotes and an ellipsis do not create extra sentences.
Text
Dr. Lee arrived at nine. She said, “Stop!” Then nothing... until noon. Why?
Result
- Sentences
- 4
- Words
- 13
- Words per sentence
- 3.3
Frequently asked questions
What is a good average sentence length?
For general readers, an average of 15 to 20 words per sentence is easy to follow. Longer averages are normal in academic and legal writing, shorter ones in instructions and web copy. Look at the longest sentences as well as the average.
Why is a heading counted as a sentence?
A heading separated from the text by a blank line is a unit of writing even without final punctuation, and ignoring it would merge it into the next paragraph. If you do not want it counted, remove it before pasting.
Does it work for languages other than English?
Yes for languages that end sentences with . ! ? or 。！？, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic and Japanese. Abbreviation handling is tuned for English, so other languages may see a few extra splits after their own abbreviations.