Speech Time Calculator: Words to Minutes
how long will it take to say?
At an average speaking pace of 150 words per minute, 500 words takes about 3 minutes 20 seconds to say, 1,000 words about 6 minutes 40 seconds, and a 5 minute speech needs about 750 words. Paste your script below to time it at your own pace and see how many slides it needs.
Counted in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
Silent reading time: 0 sec (at 238 words per minute).
Optional. DistilBook narrates your script over animated whiteboard or motion scenes. 10 free credits at signup, no card.
How the calculation works
Speaking time = words / words per minute. The calculator counts every word in your script (any run of characters between spaces that contains a letter or a number, so "1,000" and "well-known" count once and a lone dash does not), divides by the pace you pick, and adds an optional pause between paragraphs for slide changes or breaths.
Slides come from the spoken length. A live presentation usually spends 1 to 2 minutes on a slide. A narrated video moves faster: a DistilBook motion explainer slide stays on screen for about 25 seconds and a whiteboard slide for about 2 minutes, so the per-slide word budget is the pace multiplied by that time (about 63 and 300 words at 150 wpm).
Reading time uses 238 words per minute, the average adult silent reading rate for English non-fiction across 190 studies (Brysbaert, 2019). People read faster than they speak, so a script that "reads" in 2 minutes takes about 3 to speak.
How long does it take to say 100 to 5,000 words?
| Words | 130 wpm (slow) | 150 wpm (average) | 170 wpm (fast) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 words | 46 sec | 40 sec | 35 sec |
| 150 words | 1 min 9 sec | 1 min | 53 sec |
| 200 words | 1 min 32 sec | 1 min 20 sec | 1 min 11 sec |
| 250 words | 1 min 55 sec | 1 min 40 sec | 1 min 28 sec |
| 300 words | 2 min 18 sec | 2 min | 1 min 46 sec |
| 400 words | 3 min 5 sec | 2 min 40 sec | 2 min 21 sec |
| 500 words | 3 min 51 sec | 3 min 20 sec | 2 min 56 sec |
| 750 words | 5 min 46 sec | 5 min | 4 min 25 sec |
| 1,000 words | 7 min 42 sec | 6 min 40 sec | 5 min 53 sec |
| 1,500 words | 11 min 32 sec | 10 min | 8 min 49 sec |
| 2,000 words | 15 min 23 sec | 13 min 20 sec | 11 min 46 sec |
| 2,500 words | 19 min 14 sec | 16 min 40 sec | 14 min 42 sec |
| 3,000 words | 23 min 5 sec | 20 min | 17 min 39 sec |
| 5,000 words | 38 min 28 sec | 33 min 20 sec | 29 min 25 sec |
How many words is a 1 to 60 minute speech?
| Length | 130 wpm | 150 wpm | 170 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 130 words | 150 words | 170 words |
| 2 minutes | 260 words | 300 words | 340 words |
| 3 minutes | 390 words | 450 words | 510 words |
| 4 minutes | 520 words | 600 words | 680 words |
| 5 minutes | 650 words | 750 words | 850 words |
| 7 minutes | 910 words | 1,050 words | 1,190 words |
| 10 minutes | 1,300 words | 1,500 words | 1,700 words |
| 15 minutes | 1,950 words | 2,250 words | 2,550 words |
| 20 minutes | 2,600 words | 3,000 words | 3,400 words |
| 30 minutes | 3,900 words | 4,500 words | 5,100 words |
| 45 minutes | 5,850 words | 6,750 words | 7,650 words |
| 60 minutes | 7,800 words | 9,000 words | 10,200 words |
What is a normal speaking rate?
About 150 words per minute for everyday American English. Rates vary with the speaker, the language and the material: slow down for dense or technical content and for viewers listening in a second language.
| Context | Words per minute | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday conversation (US English) | about 150 | National Center for Voice and Speech |
| Audiobook narration | about 155 (9,300 words per finished hour) | ACX (Audible) narrator guidance |
| Reading aloud, adults | 183 on average | Brysbaert, 2019 meta-analysis (77 studies) |
| Silent reading, non-fiction | 238 on average | Brysbaert, 2019 meta-analysis (190 studies) |
| Teaching, technical or second-language audience | 120 to 140 | Slower end of the conversational range |
How long should a narrated explainer video be?
For self-paced learning, aim for about 6 minutes or less, which is roughly 900 words of narration at 150 wpm. In the largest study of online course video, the median time viewers spent watching was at most 6 minutes whatever the video's length (Guo, Kim and Rubin, 2014).
Across 2,306 finished videos made on DistilBook between April and September 2026, the median video ran 2 min 53 sec (2:53), about 430 words at 150 wpm, and 9 in 10 were under 12 min 8 sec. Most people made one short video per idea rather than one long one.
Have the script? Turn it into a narrated video
DistilBook narrates a script with an AI voice in 20 languages and draws a whiteboard or motion-graphics scene for each part of it. You review the narration before anything is generated. Signup gives 10 free credits with no card, enough for the first slide.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a 500 word speech?
About 3 minutes 20 seconds at an average pace of 150 words per minute. A slow, deliberate speaker (130 wpm) takes about 3 minutes 51 seconds, and a fast one (170 wpm) about 2 minutes 56 seconds.
How many words is a 5 minute speech?
About 750 words at 150 words per minute, or 650 to 850 words depending on pace. Leave out a few lines if you plan to pause for slides, questions or laughter.
How many words is a 2 minute speech?
About 300 words at 150 words per minute (260 to 340 depending on pace). A 1 minute speech or video script is about 150 words.
How long is a 1,000 word speech?
About 6 minutes 40 seconds at 150 words per minute, between roughly 5 minutes 53 seconds (170 wpm) and 7 minutes 42 seconds (130 wpm).
How many slides do I need for a 10 minute presentation?
Usually 5 to 10 slides, at 1 to 2 minutes per slide. Ten minutes of talk at 150 words per minute is about 1,500 words, so each slide carries 150 to 300 spoken words.
How many words per minute do people speak?
About 150 words per minute in everyday American English conversation, according to the National Center for Voice and Speech. Reading a text aloud averages 183 words per minute, and silent reading of non-fiction averages 238 (Brysbaert, 2019).
How is speaking time calculated?
Minutes = words divided by words per minute. This calculator counts every whitespace-separated token that contains a letter or number, divides by the pace you choose, and optionally adds a pause between paragraphs.
How many words should each slide of an explainer video have?
It depends on how long a slide stays on screen. At 150 words per minute, a DistilBook motion explainer slide (about 25 seconds) holds about 63 words of narration, and a whiteboard slide (about 2 minutes) holds about 300.
Is my script uploaded anywhere?
No. The count runs entirely in your browser and nothing is sent or stored. The only time your script leaves the page is if you click Turn this script into a video and sign in to DistilBook.
Does it work for languages other than English?
The word count works for any language that separates words with spaces. Speaking rates differ by language, so set a custom pace with the slider. It does not count Chinese, Japanese or Thai text correctly, because those scripts do not use spaces between words.
Sources
- National Center for Voice and Speech (University of Utah): average conversational speaking rate for US English, about 150 words per minute.
- ACX (Audible), How long will my narrated audiobook be?: about 9,300 words per finished hour. help.acx.com/s/article/how-long-will-my-narrated-audiobook-be
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
- Guo, P. J., Kim, J., and Rubin, R. (2014). How video production affects student engagement: an empirical study of MOOC videos. ACM Learning at Scale.
- DistilBook usage data: 2,306 finished videos, 7 April to 27 September 2026 (first-party).
- DistilBook pricing page: about 25 seconds of finished video per motion slide and about 2 minutes per whiteboard slide.
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