TextWordCount

The brief

TextWordCount began as a simple word counter — a utility that every writer needs and that most sites either paywalled or tracked. The privacy angle emerged from a specific pain point: most online text tools send your content to a server to process it, which means your drafts, legal documents, or private writing pass through someone else's infrastructure.

The site was expanded into a multi-tool suite (word count, character count, reading time, keyword density, sentence analysis) while maintaining the core constraint: nothing you paste into the tool ever leaves your browser.

The approach

Applied via the same methodology used across all 16 portfolio sites. Read full methodology →

The privacy-first architecture was the product decision, not an afterthought. By running everything in browser JavaScript, the site could honestly claim "we cannot see your text" — a claim that SEO farms using server-side processing cannot make. This became the primary differentiator in a crowded utility niche.

Monetization was deliberately separated from the free tools: the Gumroad storefront sells language-specific writing guides and productivity packs in 32 languages. This keeps the core tools free and unpaywalled while creating a revenue stream for buyers who want extended resources.

The build

All text processing uses the Web APIs available in every modern browser (string methods, regex, Intl.Segmenter for accurate word boundaries in non-Latin scripts). No backend, no API calls, no logging of inputs.

The 32-language Gumroad storefront was built programmatically — each language variant is a separate product page with localized metadata. This created a long-tail SEO footprint without requiring 32 separate written pages.

The multi-tool suite was built incrementally: word count first, then character count, then reading time (using average words-per-minute rates from reading research), then keyword density. Each tool shares the same processing pipeline.

Privacy was verified by publishing the architecture documentation alongside the tool — a page explaining exactly how the processing works, pointing to the open-source implementation.

Screenshots

What I'd do differently