Type or paste any text and the page reports the silent reading time and the spoken duration alongside word, character, and sentence counts. The defaults — 238 wpm reading, 150 wpm speaking — match the modern published averages for adult English, but both fields are editable so you can dial in a child reader, a fast skimmer, or a slow audiobook narrator.
Word counting is whitespace-based: each run of non-whitespace characters is one word, hyphenated compounds count as one, and inline code or numbers count too. That keeps the estimate honest for prose but undercounts the real time required for technical material — code blocks, equations, and dense tables slow real readers far more than the per-word average suggests. Add 10–25% for technical writing.
A 2019 meta-analysis by Brysbaert (Journal of Memory and Language) of silent reading studies converged on roughly 238 words per minute for adult readers of English non-fiction. It is the most-cited modern average and the figure used by Medium and most "x-minute read" badges.
Articulation has a hard ceiling — most people speak comfortably at 130–160 wpm and become unintelligible above ~190. Reading silently bypasses the vocal apparatus and hits 200–300 wpm easily. The default 150 wpm matches typical podcast and audiobook narration pace.
A word is any run of non-whitespace characters separated by whitespace. Hyphenated compounds count as one; numbers and inline code count as words. Markdown punctuation is treated as part of the surrounding word.
Less so. Code blocks, long URLs, formulas, and tables slow real readers more than the per-word average suggests. Treat the result as a floor for technical material and add 10–25% for dense prose.
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