Reading time calculator

How long will it take to read?

Many blogs and news sites print a reading time at the top of an article, and readers like it: it tells them whether they can read something now or should save it for later. The same figure helps writers and speakers. You can check that an article fits the length you promised, size a newsletter, time a speech without rehearsing it, plan how much a script will fill, or estimate how long a class reading will take.

How the time is worked out

The tool counts the words in your text and divides by a reading speed. For silent reading, studies give an average of around 200 to 250 words per minute for adults reading in their own language, and this page uses 238 as the default. You can switch to a slower speed, 150 words per minute, which suits technical texts, study material or a foreign language, or to a faster one, 300 words per minute, for light reading and skimming.

Reading aloud is slower

The second figure is the time to speak the text aloud, calculated at 130 words per minute. That is a comfortable pace for a speech or a narration, with pauses. Presenters often speak between 110 and 160 words per minute, and audiobooks are typically recorded around 150. If your speech has to fit five minutes, aim for roughly 650 words at this speed.

Words are counted in a language-aware way

Words with an apostrophe or a hyphen count as one, and numbers count as words. The extra counts, for sentences, paragraphs and characters, are shown alongside the time so you can judge the structure as well as the length of the text.

What it does not do

The result is an estimate. Real reading time depends on the reader, the difficulty of the text, the formatting, and whether there are tables, code, images or numbers to study. The tool does not count images, and it does not measure the time for reading on paper or on a screen differently. Treat it as a good guide, not as a stopwatch. For a full set of counts, and to check a character limit, use the word counter.