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Reading Time Calculator: Reading and Speaking Time

This free reading time calculator estimates how long a text takes to read silently and to speak aloud. It shows the times for slow, average and fast readers, or for your own words per minute.

By Debmedia Technologies LLP · Kolkata, India · Updated

What Is It and When Do You Need It?

Reading time turns a word count into minutes. Blogs show it at the top of a post, speakers use it to fit a slot, and podcasters use it to plan scripts.

Paste your text and read the times for different speeds.

How to Use This Tool

  1. Paste your text.
  2. Optionally enter your own reading and speaking speed.
  3. Press Calculate.
  4. Read the times for slow, average and fast speeds.

How the Calculation Works

The tool counts the words and divides by the words per minute. The default reading speeds are 150, 238 and 300 words per minute, and the speaking speeds are 110, 140 and 170. If you give your own speed it is used as well. Times are rounded to the nearest second.

Worked Example

A text of 1,190 words takes 5 minutes at 238 words per minute, and about 8 minutes 30 seconds to speak at 140.

Common Uses

  • Blog and article reading time labels.
  • Speech and presentation planning.
  • Audio and video scripts.
  • Study planning.

Tips and Common Mistakes

  • Add 10 to 20 percent for technical text.
  • Speak slower when you present to a large room.
  • Use the readability score to see how hard the text is.

Next, you may need the readability calculator, character counter, syllable counter, text repeater.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored or sent to any outside service.

Frequently Asked Questions

Adults read silently at about 238 words per minute on average for non-fiction. Slow readers manage about 150 and fast readers 300 or more.
About 130 to 150 words per minute is a comfortable speaking pace for talks and audio. Fast speech can reach 180 or more.
No. It counts words only. Add time for images, pauses and slides in a presentation.
Show a reading time on blog posts, plan the length of a speech or fit a script to an audio slot.

Disclaimer: results are calculated in your browser from the numbers you enter. Check important results before you rely on them for money, health, safety or legal decisions.