Reading Time Calculator

The tool divides your word count by the words per minute value, then rounds up to whole minutes. If the result lands under one minute, it shows exact seconds instead. There's no weighting for sentence complexity, just the plain division.

For silent reading of general content, 200 to 250 is realistic for adults. Use 130 to 150 for text meant to be read aloud, and drop lower for dense technical writing. The field takes any value from 50 to 1000, so you can match your actual audience.

Anything that computes to less than one minute displays in seconds, like 40s, rather than rounding up to 1 min. This keeps estimates for short product blurbs and social captions honest instead of inflating them.

No, it measures words only. Medium famously adds 12 seconds per image to its estimates, so if your post is image heavy, mentally pad the number. Code blocks slow readers down too, so treat the figure as a floor for technical posts.

Yes, that's a common use. Set the rate to 130 to 150 words per minute, which reflects a comfortable speaking pace. A 2,000 word script at 140 wpm gives about 15 minutes, a solid planning figure for recording sessions.

Not exactly. Medium calculates at roughly 265 words per minute and adjusts for images, while this tool defaults to 200 and counts words only. Set the field to 265 if you want to approximate Medium's number for a text-only post.