Reading Time Calculator
Paste an article, essay, or any text to get an estimated reading time based on its word count and an average reading speed — a quick way to gauge content length before publishing.
Text Tools Runs entirely in your browser
Reading time is calculated in your browser — the text is never sent to a server.
Word count
0
Silent reading time
Less than a minute (~5s)
Reading aloud time
Less than a minute (~5s)
What this tool does
Estimates how long a text takes to read silently and to read aloud, at a rate suited to the language you select, with the word count.
When to use it
- An article you want to label with its reading time.
- A text you will read aloud and want the duration of.
- Teaching material whose study time you are estimating.
- A script for an audio clip whose length you want before recording.
How to use it
- Choose the "Text language".
- Paste the text into the field.
- Read the word count, the silent reading time and the reading-aloud time.
A practical example
Input
A 1,200-word article.
Output
The word count with an estimated silent reading time and a longer reading-aloud time.
Limitations
- Reading aloud is always slower than reading silently, which is why the two are shown separately rather than as one figure.
- The estimate uses an average pace; an actual reader may be considerably faster or slower, and technical text reads more slowly than narrative.
- The language setting changes the words-per-minute rate used, so choosing the wrong one skews the estimate.
- The estimate does not account for time spent on images or tables within an article.
Privacy and processing
Reading time is calculated in your browser and the text is never sent to a server.
Technical notes
- Having a rate per language is deliberate, because average reading speed differs between languages with the structure of their words.