How accurate is the reading time estimate?

Reading time is words divided by your chosen words-per-minute, multiplied by 60 seconds. The default of 238 WPM is the average silent adult reading speed from published studies. Because you can adjust the slider, you can model a slow reader (130 WPM), an average one (238) or a fast skimmer (500) and see exactly how the time changes.

What is the difference between reading time and speaking time?

Silent reading is much faster than reading aloud. Most adults read silently at roughly 200–250 WPM but speak at only 110–180 WPM. This tool shows both side by side so you can size a blog post by its reading time and a speech or video script by its speaking time.

How are words and characters counted?

A word is any run of non-space characters, so hyphenated terms and numbers each count as one word. Characters are counted two ways — with spaces and without — and you can choose which total headlines the display. This matches how social platforms and CMS character limits usually count.

How are sentences and paragraphs detected?

Sentences are split on terminal punctuation — full stops, question marks, exclamation marks and ellipses followed by a space or the end of the text. Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line. Both are estimates: unusual formatting or abbreviations can shift the count by one or two.

What does the Flesch reading ease score mean?

The Flesch Reading Ease score runs from 0 to 100 — higher is easier. It combines average sentence length and average syllables per word. Scores of 60–70 read like plain English (around 8th-grade level); below 30 is heavy, academic prose. Aim for 60 or above for general web copy.

Is my text private and does it save between visits?

Yes on both counts. All analysis happens in your browser with no network calls, so your text never leaves your device. Your text, WPM settings and saved snapshots are stored in this browser via localStorage, so they reload next time — clear your browser data to remove them.

Reading Time & Word Counter (Pro)

A pro reading time and word counter that turns any block of text into a full readability dashboard. Paste an article, essay, blog post, newsletter or video script and it instantly reports the word count, character count, sentence count and paragraph count, then estimates how long the passage takes to read silently and to read aloud at a words-per-minute speed you control. It is built for writers sizing a post to a target length, editors trimming to a word budget, students hitting an essay limit, marketers checking a tweet or meta description, and speakers timing a script before they record.

Counting words is the easy part — the value is in the context around the number. Knowing that a draft is 1,200 words is far less useful than knowing it is a five-minute read for an average reader, a eight-minute spoken segment for a presenter, and that its Flesch score of 48 means a busy reader will find it heavy going. This tool puts all of that on one screen and updates the moment you stop typing.

How it works

Everything runs client-side in your browser. As you type or paste, the text is split into words (runs of non-space characters), characters (counted both with and without spaces), sentences (split on terminal punctuation) and paragraphs (blocks separated by blank lines). Reading time is calculated as words / readingWpm * 60 seconds and speaking time as words / speakingWpm * 60, with both speeds set by sliders and quick presets. The tool also estimates syllables per word to compute the Flesch Reading Ease score, surfaces your longest word, average word length and average sentence length, and counts unique words so you can spot repetition. Nothing is uploaded — your text, your two WPM settings and any saved draft snapshots live only in this browser via localStorage.

Example

Suppose you paste a 1,500-word blog post. At the default 238 WPM silent reading speed the tool reports a reading time of about 6 minutes 18 seconds. Switch the speaking slider to the Presenter preset (180 WPM) and the same text becomes an 8 minute 20 second spoken segment — useful before you hit record on a voiceover. The breakdown shows 78 sentences, an average of 19 words per sentence and a Flesch score of 55 (“fairly hard”). You shorten a few long sentences, the score climbs to 64 (“plain English”), and you save a snapshot so you can prove the second draft reads more easily than the first.

Words	Reading time @238 WPM	Speaking time @150 WPM
300	1 min 16 sec	2 min 0 sec
800	3 min 22 sec	5 min 20 sec
1,500	6 min 18 sec	10 min 0 sec
3,000	12 min 36 sec	20 min 0 sec

Every figure is computed locally — your text is never sent anywhere.