Reading Time Calculator
Estimate how long an article takes to read, with the reading speed it assumed stated openly.
About this tool
Counts the words in a piece of writing and converts that to a reading time.
The arithmetic is trivial. What this tool does differently is show you the assumption: published estimates for adult silent reading run from roughly 180 to 265 words per minute depending on the study and the material, so a single "5 min read" is one point inside a range nearly twice as wide as it looks. All four estimates are shown together.
Paste HTML and the tags are stripped before counting, because markup is not something anybody reads.
Common questions
Which speed should I put on my blog?
The average figure of 225 words per minute is the usual choice for ordinary prose and is what most publishing platforms use. Use the technical figure for documentation or anything with code in it, where readers stop and re-read.
Why do different sites give different reading times for the same article?
Because they assume different speeds and mostly do not say which. A 2,000-word article is 8 minutes at 250 wpm and 11 at 180. Neither is wrong; they are answers to different questions.
Does the estimate include images?
Only if you tell it how many. Each one adds ten seconds, which is a rough convention rather than a measured figure — it is there so a heavily illustrated post is not badly under-estimated, and the tool says so rather than folding it in silently.
Is reading time a ranking factor?
No. It is a courtesy to the reader, and it can reduce people bouncing off a long page they were not expecting. Nothing in a search engine reads the badge.