I work on OnePassApps, and we build the browser apps behind this post. This one is the Word Counter: type or paste text and it reports words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading and speaking time, the limit you set, and the words you repeat most - all in the same tab.

The panel's own line is the promise: "Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, estimate reading and speaking time, and find repeated words, all in this tab."

Try it on the Word Counter, or see how it sits with the rest of the suite in the app guides.

Two stages

01 Text holds the textarea, with a live counter above it that read "0 / 2,000,000" on an empty page and "117 / 2,000,000" after I typed 117 characters. Under it: "Type, paste or open a UTF-8 .txt or .md file. Nothing is stored or uploaded." Two buttons sit below - "Open .txt or .md" and "Try an example".

02 Settings is where the assumptions live, and the app says so: "Reading and speaking speeds are adjustable assumptions, not measurements." The reading speed opened at 238 wpm and the speaking speed at 150 wpm; both number boxes carry a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 1000, in steps of 1.

Next to them sit the limit controls: a "Words" / "Characters" radio pair, a "Limit in words" field, and the line "Optional. You set it; no platform limits are built in." Below that, one checkbox - "Leave out common words" - with its own explanation: "Hides short English words such as the, and and of from the repeated list." And the stage ends on the line "Nothing leaves this tab."

What the counts panel actually prints

On an empty page the panel says "Nothing to count yet" and "Type or paste text, or open a .txt or .md file. Counts appear here as you go." Both the Clear button and the Download report button start disabled.

I typed one known paragraph - the pangram plus two more sentences, 117 characters - and the panel printed, live:

  • Words 23
  • Characters 117 with spaces, 95 without spaces
  • Sentences 5, Paragraphs 1, Lines 1
  • Average word length 3.9 characters per word
  • Reading time 6 sec at 238 words per minute
  • Speaking time 9 sec at 150 words per minute

Underneath it says: "Reading and speaking times are estimates from the adjustable rates in Settings, not measurements. Sentences are counted by punctuation" - so the two times are derived, and the sentence count is rule-based.

Then comes MOST REPEATED WORDS, each entry showing the word, a count and a share: "the x 5 - 21.7%", "fox x 4 - 17.4%", "quick x 2 - 8.7%", "brown x 2 - 8.7%", "jumps x 2 - 8.7%".

Two details worth keeping. The 238 and 150 are the app's own defaults, not a measurement of you: 23 words at 238 wpm lands on 6 seconds, and the same 23 words at 150 wpm lands on 9. Change the rates and both numbers move.

The limit is yours to set

With a limit of 5 in the words box and the same 23-word text, the panel adds one line: "18 words over the limit of 5." - 23 minus 5, stated as the overage.

Switch the radio from Words to Characters and that same limit of 5 becomes "112 characters over the limit of 5." - 117 minus 5, counted with spaces, against the same text. The unit label under the limit field changes with the radio, from "words" to "characters".

The common-word filter shows up in the list

Ticking "Leave out common words" dropped "the" out of the repeated list entirely: fox moved to the top at 4 - 17.4%, and quick, brown and jumps stayed at 2 - 8.7% each. The counts themselves did not move - still 23 words, 117 characters - because the filter changes the repeated-words list and nothing else.

The example asks before it overwrites

"Try an example" does not replace your text straight away. It opens a dialog - "Replace your current text?" and "Your current text will be replaced and is not saved anywhere. Copy it somewhere first if you want to keep it." - with two buttons, "Keep my text" and "Replace with example".

I took the second one. The example that loaded is 289 characters and opens "Good writing is rewriting. Read your draft aloud, trim the long sentences, and keep the words that earn their place." Its counts read 54 words, 289 characters with spaces, 235 without, 4 sentences, 2 paragraphs, 3 lines, an average word length of 4.2, a reading time of 14 sec and a speaking time of 22 sec. The panel confirmed the action with one line: "Example text loaded."

The report carries the numbers and nothing else

"Download report" writes a plain text file - text/plain, 458 bytes for my 117-character sample - and it contains the numbers and nothing else:

Word Counter report Words: 23 Characters (with spaces): 117 Characters (no spaces): 95 Sentences: 5 Paragraphs: 1 Lines: 1 Average word length: 3.9 characters Reading time: 6 sec at 238 words per minute Speaking time: 9 sec at 150 words per minute Most repeated words: 1. the: 5 2. fox: 4 ...

Its last two lines are the point: "Reading and speaking times are estimates from adjustable rates, not measurements." and "The text itself is not included in this report."

What the guide adds, and what it leaves out

The guide page for the app has its own limits section: "Text can run to 2,000,000 characters and files up to 6 MB. No platform limits are bundled, so enter the limit you need yourself." It adds that "Each emoji or accented character counts as one character." and that "Sentence counts are rule-based and times are estimates. Chinese, Japanese and Thai word breaks depend on the browser. There are no grammar, readability or plagiarism checks. Reloading clears the text."

One small difference between the two pages: the app's own panel says "Type, paste or open a UTF-8 .txt or .md file", while the guide lists ".txt, .md or .markdown".

That last clause in the guide matters more than it looks. This is a tab, not a document - reload the page and your text is gone. The panel's two exits are "Copy stats" next to the repeated-words list and "Download report" at the top of the counts, and both should happen before you navigate away.

The promotional notice is on the page too

At the bottom of the app: "FREE PROMOTIONAL PERIOD", "Standard is free right now", "$0 / month", "100,000 credits every 30 days - No end date set - No card required" and "No automatic paid subscription. Existing paid subscriptions keep their terms.", with "Get started" and "See plans" buttons. The header's account button read "Account, not signed in" the whole time and the counter needed no sign-in to run. The guide says the same: "Word Counter runs in your browser with no account or payment details, and it never uses OnePassApps credits."

Limits

One build, one browser, one signed-out session, measured on 6 Nov 2026.

  • I typed and pasted text only. I did not open a .txt or .md file, so the 6 MB file ceiling is the guide's line, not something I loaded.
  • I pressed "Download report" once, on my own typed text. I did not press "Copy stats", so I am not claiming what it puts on the clipboard.
  • The character, sentence, paragraph and repeated-word counts come from one 117-character sample. Sentence counts are rule-based, so a different text counts differently.
  • The reading and speaking times are the app's estimates at 238 and 150 wpm, the defaults it opened with. They are not measurements of anyone reading or speaking.
  • I did not test the emoji, accented-character or Chinese, Japanese and Thai word-break behaviour the guide describes.
  • The repeated-words list showed five entries for my sample; the guide describes listing the ten most repeated words.
  • I work on OnePassApps, so this is our own build and our own app.