How many words is a 10 minute speech?

A 10 minute talk is about 1500 words at an average speaking pace of 150 words per minute. A deliberate 130 brings that to 1300 words and a fast 170 takes it to 1700. Ten minutes is where audiences begin remembering structure more than individual sentences, so the shape of the talk carries more weight than any single line inside it. TED holds its main stage to 18 minutes and books plenty of shorter slots, and TEDx events commonly hand local speakers something in the 8 to 12 minute band.

What fits in 10 minutes

This length is the TED style short talk and the product demo.

Fifteen hundred words holds three movements with a real transition between each one, or a single story told at full length with a turn in the middle. A product demo fits the problem, four minutes of live software, and the pricing or the next step. Ten minutes also gives you room for one tangent, exactly one, so pick the tangent that makes the main point land harder.

A structure that fits

1. 1Hook, 100 to 150 words. One specific moment with a person in it. Ten minutes earns you a scene, so use it.
2. 2Frame, 150 to 200 words. Say out loud, in one sentence, the question this talk answers. Audiences hold on to a question.
3. 3Movement one, 400 to 450 words. The idea and the evidence behind it.
4. 4Movement two, 400 to 450 words. The complication, the counterexample, or the part that surprised you.
5. 5Resolution and close, 250 to 300 words. Answer the question from the frame, then land on an image the room can carry out the door.

Before you deliver it

Ten minutes is long enough that a read script starts to sound read. Move to a one page beat sheet after the third rehearsal and keep exact wording only for the open and the close, the two places where precise words pay. Run it five times standing. Time every run and expect the second to be your slowest, since that is when you stop reading and start thinking.