Sentence Counter
Counts sentences the way a careful reader would — plus average sentence length, live.
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Save these drafts to a free account — access them from any device. →Sentence-length quick reference
| 5–11 words | very easy to read | ads, captions, CTAs |
| 12–17 words | easy | web copy, journalism |
| 18–25 words | standard | essays, reports |
| 26–35 words | hard | academic, legal |
| 36+ words | very hard — split it | worth rewriting |
Averages
Length and band per sentence — click a row to select that sentence in the editor.
| # | Words | Characters | Length |
|---|
Each block is one sentence, sized by length. Good writing mixes short and long — long runs of same-length sentences read as monotone. Click a block to select that sentence.
short (≤8) medium (9–20) long (21+)
Several similar-length sentences in a row — try varying them.
Long sentences are where readers get lost. Click one to select it in the editor — splitting it in two is usually the fastest fix.
Edge cases, counted live
How sentences are counted
A sentence ends at a terminator — . ! ? … and their equivalents in other scripts (。！？ for Chinese and Japanese, ؟ for Arabic, । for Hindi) — followed by the next real content. Text with no terminator at all counts as one sentence. Quotes and brackets after the stop stay attached to their sentence.
Try the edge cases below — they're counted live by the same code as the counter above.
Honest limits
Abbreviations split: «Dr. Smith arrived. He was late.» counts as three sentences, because «Dr.» looks like a sentence end — most counters share this behavior, and it typically inflates the count by a few percent in abbreviation-heavy text. Decimal numbers (3.14) split the same way. Ellipses (… or ...) each end a sentence.
Languages that don't use terminators the same way — Thai in particular — are counted conservatively: a Thai passage without stops counts as one sentence, so sentence-based stats are less meaningful there.
Who counts sentences — and why
Students check essay structure against a target («12–15 sentences per page»); teachers and editors watch average sentence length — the readability lever this page shows under Averages; writers hunt the longest sentence (tap the Longest tile to jump to it); language learners verify a summary hit a «5 sentences» limit. For paragraph-level structure, the paragraph counter does the same job; for grade-level scores, the readability checker builds on these counts.
What counts as a sentence?
Text ending in a period, question mark, exclamation point or ellipsis, containing at least one letter or number. Abbreviations mid-sentence can occasionally over-count — no automatic counter is perfect, but this one stays close on normal prose. The full rules are in sentences and paragraphs.
What's a good average sentence length?
For clear writing, 15–20 words per sentence on average. Above 25, most style guides suggest splitting some up. The average updates live as you edit.
How many sentences is a paragraph?
Web paragraphs average 2–4 sentences; academic paragraphs 4–8. If a paragraph passes 8 sentences, it's usually carrying more than one idea and will read better split.
How can I check if a sentence is correct?
Counting tells you how many sentences you have, not whether they are right. To check grammar, spelling and punctuation, paste the text into the grammar checker: it corrects each sentence and can explain every fix. A quick manual test is to read it aloud: a complete sentence needs a subject and a verb and ends with a period, question mark or exclamation point.
Does Google Docs have a sentence counter?
No. Google Docs' word count (Tools → Word count, Ctrl+Shift+C) shows pages, words and characters, but not sentences. Microsoft Word lists sentences only in its Readability Statistics, which appear after a spelling and grammar check when that option is on. Paste your text here to get the sentence count and the average sentence length in one step.