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Words to minutes calculator for speeches and scripts
Paste your text or type a word count to see how long it takes to speak or read, or enter minutes to see how many words fit. Everything runs in your browser, with no account or upload.
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How many words is a 5 minute speech?
At 155 words per minute, a 5 minute speech is about 775 words. The table below covers 1 to 30 minutes at three speaking paces.
| Speech length | Slow (140 wpm) | Medium (155 wpm) | Fast (180 wpm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 min | 140 words | 155 words | 180 words |
| 2 min | 280 words | 310 words | 360 words |
| 3 min | 420 words | 465 words | 540 words |
| 4 min | 560 words | 620 words | 720 words |
| 5 min | 700 words | 775 words | 900 words |
| 6 min | 840 words | 930 words | 1,080 words |
| 7 min | 980 words | 1,085 words | 1,260 words |
| 10 min | 1,400 words | 1,550 words | 1,800 words |
| 15 min | 2,100 words | 2,325 words | 2,700 words |
| 20 min | 2,800 words | 3,100 words | 3,600 words |
| 30 min | 4,200 words | 4,650 words | 5,400 words |
How long does it take to read 1,000 words?
Silent reading at 238 wpm takes about 4 min 12 sec. Reading 1,000 words out loud at 155 wpm takes about 6 min 27 sec. The table covers 100 to 10,000 words.
| Words | Speaking aloud (155 wpm) | Silent reading (238 wpm) |
|---|---|---|
| 100 words | 39 sec | 25 sec |
| 250 words | 1 min 37 sec | 1 min 3 sec |
| 300 words | 1 min 56 sec | 1 min 16 sec |
| 500 words | 3 min 14 sec | 2 min 6 sec |
| 1,000 words | 6 min 27 sec | 4 min 12 sec |
| 1,500 words | 9 min 41 sec | 6 min 18 sec |
| 2,000 words | 12 min 54 sec | 8 min 24 sec |
| 3,000 words | 19 min 21 sec | 12 min 36 sec |
| 4,000 words | 25 min 48 sec | 16 min 48 sec |
| 5,000 words | 32 min 15 sec | 21 min 1 sec |
| 10,000 words | 1 hr 4 min 31 sec | 42 min 1 sec |
Why is this free? Hushscript runs it entirely in your browser. No server processes your file, so there's nothing to charge for.
How to convert words to minutes
Minutes equal words divided by words per minute. A 1,550 word script at 155 words per minute runs 10 minutes. The calculator above does that for you: paste the text or type a count, choose Speaking aloud or Silent reading, pick Slow, Medium or Fast, and the result shows minutes and seconds. Type your own number in Words per minute if you know your pace. Time a minute of your own delivery and count the words you got through.
Speaking time calculator for speeches and presentations
For a speech, talk or presentation, use Speaking aloud and paste the script. The result is your speaking time for steady delivery. Allow extra for pauses, slides, demos, questions and applause, and trim the script rather than speed up. Estimating a text to speech or AI voiceover? Pick Custom and enter the words per minute your voice produces, since the presets describe human delivery. The table above answers the common version of the question, how many words is a 5 minute speech, along with 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes.
Words per minute calculator: minutes to words
Going the other way, choose Words from time and enter the slot you have, such as 2.5 minutes. You get the number of words that fit at your pace. To measure your own speaking words per minute, read a passage aloud for a timed minute or two, count the words you got through (paste them above to count) and divide by the minutes. Reading out loud, 1,000 words takes roughly 6 and a half minutes at the Medium pace.
Average speaking rate in words per minute
No single number describes everyone, so the presets are adjustable starting points, not averages. They come from two sources you can check:
- Marc Brysbaert’s meta-analysis, How many words do we read per minute? (Journal of Memory and Language, 2019), reports an average of 183 words per minute for reading aloud and says audiobooks are spoken at 140 to 180. The Slow and Fast speaking presets use 140 and 180.
- ACX, the audiobook marketplace, says in its audiobook length guide that most performers narrate about 9,300 words per hour. That is about 155 words per minute, the Medium preset.
Conversation, lectures and interviews can sit well outside this range, so edit the number to match your own delivery.
How long does it take to read a given number of words?
Choose Silent reading for reading time. The Medium preset is 238 words per minute, the mean Brysbaert found for adults reading English non-fiction, and he reports that most adults fall between 175 and 300. The Slow and Fast reading presets use those two ends. The reading time table above shows silent and spoken time for 100 to 10,000 words, read silently or out loud.
Already recorded it?
This calculator works from words you already have. If you have the recording instead, audio to text is a separate transcription service. It requires an account and uploads prepared audio for recognition. Eligible personal accounts get 30 free minutes once, after card verification or with the first purchase.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I convert words to minutes?
Divide the word count by your words per minute. At 155 words per minute, 775 words take 5 minutes. Paste your text or type the count above, choose speaking or silent reading, and the calculator does the division and shows minutes and seconds.
How many words per minute does the average person speak?
There is no single figure. Brysbaert's 2019 review of 77 studies puts the average for reading aloud at 183 words per minute, and notes that audiobooks are spoken at 140 to 180. ACX plans about 9,300 words per finished audiobook hour, roughly 155 per minute. Casual conversation, a nervous first talk and a slow, deliberate keynote each differ, so edit the pace to match yours.
How many words is a 5 minute speech?
About 775 words at 155 words per minute, or 700 to 900 across the slow and fast presets (140 and 180). The table above covers speeches from 1 to 30 minutes at all three paces.
How long does it take to read 1,000 words out loud?
About 6 minutes 27 seconds at 155 words per minute, the Medium speaking preset. Reading silently is faster: about 4 minutes 12 seconds at 238 words per minute, the mean for English non-fiction in Brysbaert's review.
Why is speaking time longer than reading time?
Speaking aloud is slower than silent reading. Brysbaert's review finds a mean of 238 words per minute for silent non-fiction reading and 183 for reading aloud. Pauses, slides and audience reactions add to a live talk on top of that.
How do I convert minutes to words?
Switch to Words from time, enter the minutes (decimals work) and read the word count. It multiplies minutes by words per minute and rounds to the nearest word. A 2.5 minute slot at 155 words per minute fits about 388 words.
How does the calculator count words?
A word is a run of characters between spaces that contains a letter or digit, so well-known, and/or and 3.5 each count once and a lone dash counts as nothing. Chinese, Japanese and Thai text has no spaces between words, so it is split with your browser's word segmenter and the count is approximate. The pace presets are for English, so treat results for other languages as rough.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. Counting and timing run in your browser and the text is never sent to a server or stored.