Reading Time Calculator
Sourced reading-speed math for readers, plus a separate speaking-time estimate for scripts.
This calculates two different things from the same word count: how long an average adult takes to silently read the text, and how long it takes to say it out loud at a natural speaking pace. They're not the same number — speaking is slower than silent reading, which surprises people estimating a presentation's length from its word count alone.
Publishers use reading-time estimates on blog posts ("6 min read") mainly to set reader expectations before they commit to an article; the same math works in reverse for anyone drafting to a time budget — a 5-minute video script, a 3-minute conference talk, a 10-minute onboarding email sequence.
Reading and speaking time appear here as you type.
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Words
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Reading time
under a minute
Speaking time
The math, and where the numbers come from
Reading time = word count ÷ words-per-minute (WPM). This tool uses 238 WPM as the silent-reading default for adult readers of general-audience English prose, based on a 2019 meta-analysis by Brysbaert (published in the Journal of Memory and Language) that reviewed reading-speed studies going back decades and found average adult silent-reading speed for non-fiction in that range — a meaningfully lower figure than the often-cited but outdated 250-300 WPM estimates from older, smaller studies. See /blog/average-reading-speed-explained/ on the blog for the fuller sourced breakdown and how speed varies by text difficulty and reader age.
Speaking time = word count ÷ speaking-WPM, using roughly 130-150 WPM as a natural conversational/presentation pace — noticeably slower than silent reading because spoken delivery includes breath pauses, emphasis, and the simple physical time it takes to articulate words, none of which apply to the eye scanning a page.
Both numbers are averages across a population, not a measurement of any specific reader or speaker. Technical or unfamiliar-vocabulary text is read more slowly than easy prose at the same word count; a practiced public speaker delivers at a different pace than someone reading unrehearsed from a script.
Who uses this
- Adding an honest "X min read" estimate to a blog post or article before publishing.
- Checking whether a speech or video script fits an allotted time slot, using the speaking-time figure rather than the faster reading-time one.
- Estimating how long an onboarding email or help-doc article will actually take a new user to read through.
Edge cases to know about
- Text with a lot of numbers, code snippets, or unfamiliar jargon is read more slowly than the average WPM assumes — treat the estimate as a floor for technical content, not an exact prediction.
- The speaking-time estimate assumes continuous natural delivery; a script with a lot of intentional pauses, stage directions, or multiple speakers will take longer in practice than the raw word-count math suggests.
- Very short text (a single sentence) produces a reading-time estimate rounded to under a minute, which is technically accurate but not a very meaningful figure to plan around — the calculator earns its keep on articles, scripts, and documents long enough that a minutes-based estimate is actually useful.
Related tools
FAQ
- Why does this use 238 WPM instead of the 200 or 250 I've seen elsewhere?
- Older, frequently-cited reading-speed figures (200-300 WPM) came from smaller, older studies. Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis aggregated a much larger body of research and found silent-reading speed for adult readers of English non-fiction clusters closer to 238 WPM on average — see /blog/average-reading-speed-explained/ for the full citation and how speed varies by age and text difficulty.
- Should I use reading time or speaking time for a video script?
- Speaking time — reading time assumes silent reading, which is meaningfully faster than a person speaking the same words out loud on camera or in a presentation. Using reading time for a script will make your estimate of the video's actual runtime too short.
- Does formatting like bullet points or headers change the reading time?
- The calculator only sees word count, so it doesn't currently account for the fact that skimmable formatting (bullets, short paragraphs, subheadings) is often read faster than dense prose of the same length. Treat the estimate as a same-difficulty-content baseline, not a format-aware prediction.
- Why do reading-time badges on different blogs disagree for similar-length posts?
- Different publishing platforms use different assumed WPM figures — some still use older, faster estimates (250-300 WPM) rather than the more recent Brysbaert meta-analysis figure this tool uses, and some round differently or include/exclude headings and captions from the word count. There's no single industry-standard reading-time formula, only different reasonable choices of WPM constant.