Why do two word counters give different totals?
Compare the counting rules before editing a draft to meet a limit.
Check which limit you have
A word limit and a character limit measure different things. Use the unit named in the submission instructions. If the receiving form shows its own count, that is the count you need to meet.
ToolOctopus keeps an apostrophe or hyphen inside a word: don’t and well-made each count as one. A standalone emoji is not a word. A different counter may split or ignore those characters differently.
Visible characters are not bytes
An accented letter can be stored as one code point or as a letter followed by a combining accent. Joined emoji can also contain several code points. The character counter reports visible characters, code points, UTF-16 units and UTF-8 bytes separately.
Use the encoding details when a field limit is specified in bytes. Shortening the text by one visible character does not necessarily remove one byte.
Check the part you will submit
Paste the same text into both counters, including headings and notes only if they belong in the submission. Spaces, line breaks and punctuation affect character totals. Screen wrapping does not create a stored line break.