Updated · Built and checked by the PlinzoTools team, formulas tested against published sources
Check how many words you still need to hit an assignment's word-count target, and your current progress.
Given your current word count and your assignment's target word count, this tool instantly shows your progress percentage and exactly how many words you still need to write (or how many you're over, if you've exceeded the target).
Enter your current word count and the target word count. The progress percentage and words remaining update instantly.
The calculator uses only your two inputs. Words remaining is the target minus your current count, and it never goes below zero. Words over is your current count minus the target, and it also never goes below zero. The progress percentage is your current count divided by the target, multiplied by 100, and it is capped at 100 percent. Only one of the two headline figures is displayed at a time: if you are at or under the target, you see words remaining together with the progress percentage rounded to a whole number; if you are over the target, you see a plus sign and the number of words over.
Progress % = current words / target words x 100 (capped at 100)
Suppose your target is 1,500 words and you have written 900. Remaining is 600 and progress is 60 percent. After a productive evening you reach 1,380: remaining is 120 and progress is 92 percent. When you reach exactly 1,500, remaining shows 0 at 100 percent. At 1,620 the display switches to plus 120, meaning you are 120 words over. These numbers are hypothetical, but the same steps apply to any target.
Note that a target of zero gives zero for every result, because a percentage of nothing has no meaning. Enter a target above zero to get useful output.
Word processors show a live count and often let you highlight a portion to count only that section, which is handy for excluding references. Different programs can count hyphenated words or numbers slightly differently, so if your submission system reports a different figure from your editor, follow the system your institution uses.
The tool shows how many words you're over the target instead of words remaining, so you know exactly how much to trim.
Most word processors (Word, Google Docs) show a live word count. You can also paste your draft into this site's Word Counter tool.
The progress percentage is capped at 100. When you exceed the target, the tool shows the number of words over instead, so you can see how much to trim.
All results come out as zero, since there is no meaningful percentage of a zero target. Enter a target greater than zero.
Yes, the progress figure shown beside words remaining is rounded to a whole number. The words remaining figure is exact.
It depends on the assignment instructions. Many exclude the reference list, but some include in-text citations. Check your brief, and count the same portion every time you update the tool.