About the Sentence Counter
This sentence counter tells you how many sentences and paragraphs are in a piece of text, along with the word count, the average sentence length and the longest and shortest sentences. A bar chart shows the length of each sentence so you can see at a glance where your writing runs on or turns choppy.
Writers, students, editors and SEO copywriters use sentence length as a quick readability check: most style guides suggest averaging 15–20 words per sentence, and very long sentences (over about 25 words) are the first thing to split when text feels hard going. Set your own threshold and the tool counts and lists the sentences that go over it.
Sentences end at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis followed by a capital letter or number. Titles and short forms such as Dr., Mr., e.g., i.e. and vs., single-letter initials and decimal numbers are not treated as sentence ends. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line; you can optionally treat every line break as the end of a sentence for lists and headings.
With the default inputs, the sentences is 6. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the sentence counter
- 1Paste or type your text.
- 2Separate paragraphs with a blank line.
- 3Set the word count above which a sentence counts as long.
- 4Turn on line-break mode for lists or headings without punctuation.
- 5Review the chart and table to find sentences to shorten.
Formula and method
The text is first split into paragraphs at blank lines. Inside each paragraph, a run of terminal punctuation (. ! ? or …), optionally followed by a closing quote or bracket, ends a sentence when the next character after the space is a capital letter, a digit or an opening quote. A period does not end a sentence after a title or short form (Dr., Mrs., St., vs., e.g., i.e., No.) or after a single capital initial, and decimals such as 4.5 never split because no space follows the point. Any text left at the end of a paragraph without punctuation still counts as a sentence.
Words are runs of letters or digits, allowing internal apostrophes and hyphens (don't, well-known) and decimal or thousands separators (4.5, 1,000). Average sentence length divides the words in all sentences by the number of sentences.
- Sentences
- Chunks ending in . ! ? or … followed by a capital, digit or quote
- Paragraphs
- Blocks of text separated by a blank line
Worked examples
Abbreviations and decimals
The default text has six sentences across two paragraphs. "Dr." is a title, "a.m." and "U.S." are followed by lowercase words, and 9.30 and 4.5 have no space after the point, so none of them split a sentence. 50 words ÷ 6 sentences = 8.3 words on average; "No!" is the shortest at one word.
Spotting a long sentence
The first sentence has 33 words, well over the 25-word threshold, while "It worked." has 2 and "Activation rose sharply." has 3. The average is 38 ÷ 3 = 12.7 words, but the long-sentence count of 1 shows exactly where to split.
A bullet list counted line by line
Without punctuation the three lines would run together as one sentence. With line-break mode on, each line ends a sentence: 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 words over 3 sentences, an average of 3 words.
Frequently asked questions
How does the counter decide where a sentence ends?+
A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis that is followed by a space and a capital letter, number or opening quote. Abbreviations such as Dr., e.g. and vs., initials like J. K., and decimals like 3.5 are skipped.
What is a good average sentence length?+
Plain-language guides commonly recommend averaging about 15 to 20 words per sentence. Varying length keeps writing lively, but sentences over roughly 25 words are the first candidates to split for easier reading.
How are paragraphs counted?+
A paragraph is any block of text separated from the next by a blank line (two line breaks). A single line break inside a block is treated as part of the same paragraph, as most word processors and websites display it.
Why does my bullet list count as one sentence?+
List items usually have no end punctuation, so nothing marks where one stops. Turn on "Treat every line break as a sentence end" and each line will be counted as its own sentence.
Does an ellipsis end a sentence?+
An ellipsis (… or ...) ends a sentence only when the next word starts with a capital letter. "Wait... what?" stays one sentence, while "I waited... Nobody came." is counted as two.