Words, characters, sentences & reading time — 100% free, runs in your browser
Word limits are everywhere — assignments, meta descriptions, social posts, applications. This counts as you type and also estimates reading time, which is useful when writing for the web. Character count matters most for platforms with hard limits.
At roughly 200 words per minute, which is average for adult reading on screen. Technical material reads slower.
Yes, the character count includes spaces, which is what most platform limits measure.
Depends entirely on the topic. Answering a simple question well in 600 words beats padding it to 2000. Length is not itself a ranking factor.