Reading time calculator
Enter a word count or paste text, get the reading time.
How long does it take to read something?
Divide the word count by your reading speed. A meta-analysis by Brysbaert (2019) found adults read English silently at about 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction.
How long is a 5,000-word article?
About 21 minutes at 238 words per minute, or about 19 minutes at 260.
How fast do people read aloud?
About 183 words per minute on average — useful for timing a speech or presentation.
Is my speed normal?
Most adults read non-fiction at 175–300 words per minute and fiction at 200–320 in the same study, so a wide range is normal.
Can I paste text?
Yes — choose “Paste text” and the calculator counts the words for you.
Worked example: an article, a speech and a novel
A 2,500-word article at 238 words per minute takes 2,500 ÷ 238 = 10.5 minutes, about 10 min 30 s. A 1,200-word speech delivered aloud at 183 words per minute runs 1,200 ÷ 183 = 6.6 minutes, so plan roughly 7 minutes with no pauses. An 80,000-word novel read silently at 260 words per minute is about 5 h 8 min; read aloud at 183 it would take about 7 h 17 min.
Where do the three speeds come from?
They come from Marc Brysbaert’s review and meta-analysis of reading rate, “How many words do we read per minute?”, published in the Journal of Memory and Language in 2019. It pools many studies of adults reading English. The averages are 238 words per minute for silent non-fiction, 260 for silent fiction and 183 for reading aloud. They are averages across people; the ranges quoted above show how far individuals vary. The studies concern English, so use the figures as a rougher guide for other languages.
Common mistakes with reading time
Counting characters or pages instead of words: 30,000 characters is not 30,000 words, and entering it as words would give 126 minutes, far too long. Using the silent speed for a speech: reading aloud is slower, so a talk timed at 238 words per minute will run long. Forgetting pauses, slides and questions when timing a presentation. Treating the average as your own speed: time yourself on a page of similar text and enter that. And assuming that reading time equals study time: the figures are for ordinary reading, not for memorizing or careful note-taking.
Reading times for common lengths
From the same three speeds (238 words per minute for non-fiction, 260 for fiction, 183 aloud):
- 500 words: 0 h 2 min non-fiction, 0 h 2 min fiction, 0 h 3 min aloud
- 1,000 words: 0 h 4 min non-fiction, 0 h 4 min fiction, 0 h 5 min aloud
- 2,500 words: 0 h 11 min non-fiction, 0 h 10 min fiction, 0 h 14 min aloud
- 5,000 words: 0 h 21 min non-fiction, 0 h 19 min fiction, 0 h 27 min aloud
- 10,000 words: 0 h 42 min non-fiction, 0 h 38 min fiction, 0 h 55 min aloud
- 50,000 words: 3 h 30 min non-fiction, 3 h 12 min fiction, 4 h 33 min aloud
Using your own speed
The averages hide a wide spread between readers, and speed also depends on the material: dense technical text is slower than a light novel. To get your own number, time yourself on a page of the kind of text you care about and divide the words by the minutes. If you read 450 words in 2 minutes, your speed is 225 words per minute, and a 2,500-word article would take 11.1 minutes, compared with 10.5 at the average. Treat these figures as planning estimates, not as a target to beat: the goal of reading is usually understanding, and pushing the pace can cost some of it.
Counting words
Word processors count a word as any run of characters between spaces, so a hyphenated term, a number or a URL counts as one. The pasted-text option works the same way. Counts from different programs can differ by a few percent on text with many numbers or symbols, which is small next to the variation between readers. Headings, captions, tables and code listings are counted but are usually read at a different pace than prose, so for a document with a lot of them, treat the estimate as a minimum.
Sources and related calculators
Sources: M. Brysbaert, “How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate,” Journal of Memory and Language 109 (2019). Related: download time calculator, time calculator, pace calculator and countdown calculator.