Paste or type and four stats update on every keystroke: words, characters, sentences, and estimated reading time. No submit button, no processing delay — the counting happens locally in your browser as the text changes.
The exact counting rules (and where they bend)
Words are runs of non-whitespace, so hyphenated compounds count once: "state-of-the-art design" is 2 words, which matches how Microsoft Word counts but not how some editors that split on hyphens do. Characters are raw length including spaces and line breaks — relevant if you are checking against a limit that strips whitespace, like some SMS gateways.
Sentences are counted as runs of terminal punctuation (., !, ?), and this is where you should trust the number least. The run-based approach means an ellipsis or "?!" counts once, so "Wait... what?! Really?" is correctly 3 sentences. But every period looks terminal to it: "Send it to Dr. Smith, e.g. by Friday." counts as 4 sentences because of the abbreviation periods. If your text is heavy on abbreviations, decimals, or URLs, treat the sentence figure as an upper bound.
Reading time is words divided by 200 per minute, rounded up — a deliberately conservative silent-reading rate. The ceiling means 201 words already shows 2 minutes; the jumps are coarse by design since nobody reads to the second.