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Reading Time Calculator
Blogs print a read time, presenters need to fit a slot, and teachers plan around attention spans. Paste the text and set a speed to see both the silent reading time and the spoken time.
How to use it
- Paste the text.
- Drag the slider to the reading speed you want to assume.
- Read the silent and spoken estimates side by side.
Examples
- A 1,100-word article at 220 wpm → about five minutes.
- The same text read aloud at 130 wpm → closer to eight and a half minutes.
- A five-minute talk needs roughly 650 spoken words, not 1,100.
Questions people ask
What speed should I assume?
Around 220 words per minute for an adult reading prose silently, and 200 to 250 for a technical text that people skim. Reading aloud is much slower, about 130 to 150, because speech has to breathe.
Why is my talk always longer than the estimate?
Because live speaking includes pauses, questions, slide changes and asides that no word count sees. Plan for about 20 per cent more than the spoken figure and you will rarely overrun.
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Updated: 2026-08-07