Estimate reading and speaking time at multiple paces — slow, average, fast, and custom WPM. Useful for blog posts, scripts, podcasts, and audiobooks.
The 238 wpm average comes from Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of adult silent reading rates. Technical or unfamiliar material runs slower; popular fiction runs faster.
238 words per minute for silent reading of non-fiction, per Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of 17 studies. Fiction averages closer to 260 wpm; technical material often drops to 100–150 wpm.
Conversation runs around 130 wpm. Podcasts average 150 wpm. Audiobook narrators typically read at 150–165 wpm. Auctioneers and rapid speakers can sustain 250+ wpm, but listener comprehension drops sharply above 200 wpm.
Different tools assume different baseline WPM (200 to 275 is common). Whether they include captions, headings, code blocks, and image alt text also affects the count. Our calculator uses 238 wpm as the average baseline and counts all words in your input.