Speech time calculator

Word counts for common speech lengths

Every figure below uses the same three paces as the calculator above, so the two always agree. Slow is 130 words per minute, average is 150, and fast is 170.

Choosing a pace

Words per minute averages your talking speed together with your silence, so two speakers can share a number and sound nothing alike. One talks steadily throughout. The other moves quickly through sentences and leaves real gaps between them. The second is usually easier to follow, because the gaps land where an audience needs to catch up.

Pick your pace from the room rather than from a target number. Reading from a script runs faster than speaking from notes. Video calls run faster than a stage, because silence feels longer when you cannot read the room. Dense or unfamiliar material rewards a slower pace, and so does speaking to an audience listening in a second language.

Practised speakers often sit above 150. Delivery that sounds rushed is usually about missing pauses rather than a high word rate, which is why adding silence at the transitions tends to fix it faster than trying to slow every sentence down.

Rehearsal time and real time

A word count is an estimate built on an assumed pace, so treat the result as a planning figure and confirm it by speaking. Time a rehearsal standing, out loud, at full volume. A silent read-through runs considerably faster than speech and gives you a number that will not survive the actual room.

Leave margin. Writing to roughly 90 percent of your slot absorbs the questions, the technical fumble, and the tangent you did not plan, and it costs you nothing when none of those happen. It also helps to time your opening and closing separately, since those are the two stretches an audience remembers and the two most likely to get rushed.

Measuring your real pace

This calculator estimates from a script. Your actual delivered pace is a different number, and it moves under pressure. The Wellspoken app measures it from a recording, alongside where your pauses fall and how often fillers appear, so you can see which stretch sped up. For more on pacing in conversation, read how fast you should talk in a meeting.