Paragraph Counter

Count your paragraphs and see how long each one runs, so you can break up the blocks that have got out of hand.

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Paragraphs

0s to read

0s to say aloud

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Words

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Characters

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No spaces

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Sentences

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Lines

Averages

Words per sentence0
Characters per word0
Words per paragraph0
Unique words0
Reading level

Paragraph lengths

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Separate text with a blank line to count paragraphs.

Runs in your browser. Your text is never uploaded.

Paragraphs are a reading aid

A paragraph break is a rest. It tells the reader one idea has finished and gives the eye somewhere to return to after looking away. On a phone, where a 150-word paragraph fills the entire screen, breaks are what make the difference between text that gets read and text that gets scrolled past.

The rule that a paragraph holds one idea is genuinely useful, because it turns “this paragraph is too long” into a question you can answer: how many ideas are in here, and where does the second one start?

Typical paragraph lengths

WritingWords per paragraph
Web copy and news25–60
Blog posts40–100
Business writing50–100
Academic writing100–200
FictionAnything, deliberately

If your paragraphs arrived as one unbroken block because of how they were pasted, thetext cleaner will restore the spacing before you count.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a paragraph?
A block of text separated from the next by a blank line. Several blank lines in a row still count as one break, and a paragraph must contain at least one letter or number to be counted.
Why does my paragraph count look too low?
Your paragraphs are probably separated by a single line break rather than a blank line. That is common when text is pasted out of a PDF or an email. Run it through the text cleaner, or add a blank line between paragraphs, and the count will be right.
How long should a paragraph be?
For online reading, three to five sentences — roughly 40 to 120 words. We flag anything at 150 words or more, because a block that size becomes a wall of text on a phone screen. Academic writing runs longer, and a single-sentence paragraph is a legitimate device for emphasis.