Free tool
How long your words run spoken aloud, read silently, or narrated as audio. Built on published pace research, not guesswork.
Your text
Speaking pace
Spoken at 130 wpm (conversational)
7 min 42 sec
Read silently (238 wpm)
4 min 12 sec
Narrated as audio (155 wpm)
6 min 27 sec
Working backwards from a time slot? At a conversational 130 words per minute, common speaking lengths need roughly this much text:
| 1 min | ≈ 130 words | An elevator pitch |
| 3 min | ≈ 390 words | A wedding toast |
| 5 min | ≈ 650 words | A class presentation |
| 10 min | ≈ 1,300 words | A conference talk |
| 20 min | ≈ 2,600 words | A keynote slot |
| 45 min | ≈ 5,850 words | A full lecture |
| 60 min | ≈ 7,800 words | A podcast episode |
Rehearsing against the clock beats arithmetic: pauses, slides, and nerves all spend seconds this table cannot see.
The reading benchmark, 238 words per minute, comes from the largest published meta-analysis of adult silent reading rates. Conversational speech lands between 120 and 150 words per minute across studies of natural English, and audiobook narration holds near 155, a pace chosen so listeners never have to rewind for clarity.
The gap between those numbers is the whole story of this page. Text is faster per word; audio works in the hours your eyes are busy. A 7,800-word document is a 33-minute read you have to sit down for, or a 50-minute listen on the commute you were making anyway. If the second version sounds better, that conversion is what Audionarrator does.
About 650 words at a conversational 130 words per minute, or up to 750 if you speak quickly. Presenters who pause for emphasis or slides should plan closer to 600. The reference table on this page covers common speech lengths from one minute to an hour.
Spoken aloud at 130 words per minute, 1,000 words runs about 7 minutes 41 seconds. Read silently at an average 238 words per minute, it takes just over 4 minutes. Narrated as audiobook-style audio at 155 words per minute, it comes to roughly 6 and a half minutes.
Conversational English runs 120 to 150 words per minute. Formal presentations sit slightly slower, around 110 to 140, because pauses and emphasis eat time. Audiobook narrators deliberately hold near 150 to 160 for clarity. Auctioneers aside, almost nobody sustains 200.
Silent reading averages around 238 words per minute because your eyes skip and chunk text, while speech is bound to real time. Listening wins on a different axis: it works while you walk, commute, or do chores, which is time reading cannot use at all.
Yes. Audionarrator converts documents, from a speech draft to a full manuscript, into real audio with natural voices. Upload a PDF, DOCX, or EPUB and the first chapter converts free at any length, so you can hear exactly how your words run rather than calculating it.
Upload the document and listen to how your words actually run, with natural voices and real pacing. The first chapter converts free at any length.