Reading time calculator
Paste text or type a word count to see how long it takes to read, silently or aloud. The Book tab gives a book's hours and your finish date, and the goal form turns books a year into pages a day.
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How is reading time calculated?
Reading time in minutes = words ÷ words per minute. At 238 words a minute, 1,000 words takes 4.2 minutes, which is 4 min 12 s. For a book, multiply its pages by the words on a page first: a 300-page book at 250 words a page and 238 words a minute takes about 5 h 15 min. Divide by the minutes you read each day and round up to whole days. Your start date is day 1, so the last of those days is your finish date.
| Pages | 200 wpm | 238 wpm | 260 wpm | 300 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 4 h 10 min | 3 h 30 min | 3 h 12 min | 2 h 47 min |
| 300 | 6 h 15 min | 5 h 15 min | 4 h 48 min | 4 h 10 min |
| 400 | 8 h 20 min | 7 h | 6 h 25 min | 5 h 33 min |
| 500 | 10 h 25 min | 8 h 45 min | 8 h 1 min | 6 h 57 min |
How long does it take to read 1,000 words?
About 4 minutes silently and about 5 and a half minutes aloud: 4 min 12 s at the 238 words a minute average for non-fiction, and 5 min 28 s at the 183 words a minute average for reading aloud. A 2,000-word article takes about 8 minutes to read silently and 11 minutes to read aloud.
| Words | Silent, non-fiction (238 wpm) | Silent, fiction (260 wpm) | Aloud (183 wpm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | 1 min 3 s | 58 s | 1 min 22 s |
| 500 | 2 min 6 s | 1 min 55 s | 2 min 44 s |
| 750 | 3 min 9 s | 2 min 53 s | 4 min 6 s |
| 1,000 | 4 min 12 s | 3 min 51 s | 5 min 28 s |
| 1,500 | 6 min 18 s | 5 min 46 s | 8 min 12 s |
| 2,000 | 8 min 24 s | 7 min 42 s | 10 min 56 s |
| 2,500 | 10 min 30 s | 9 min 37 s | 13 min 40 s |
| 3,000 | 12 min 36 s | 11 min 32 s | 16 min 24 s |
| 5,000 | 21 min 1 s | 19 min 14 s | 27 min 19 s |
| 10,000 | 42 min 1 s | 38 min 28 s | 54 min 39 s |
Averages are a starting point, and your own speed gives a truer time. The reading speed test measures it in about three minutes, sends the result back to this calculator, and shows what a good reading speed is for adults.
How long to finish a book at the pace you've read so far?
Divide the pages you've read by the hours they took to get pages per hour, then divide the pages left by that rate. A 245-page book with 105 pages read in 3 hours: 105 ÷ 3 = 35 pages an hour, 245 − 105 = 140 pages left, and 140 ÷ 35 = 4 more hours, so 7 hours for the whole book. For a date, open the Book tab above, choose pages per hour as the speed unit, and enter 140 pages left at 35.
The same steps work per night. At 15 pages a night, 6 nights a week, you read 90 pages a week, so a 300-page book takes 300 ÷ 90 = 3.3 weeks and is finished in the fourth week.
How many words are on a page?
It depends on the edition: font size, margins and page size all change it, so there's no single right number. The 250 above is only a starting assumption. For a real figure, count the words on three full lines, average them, and multiply by the lines on a full page.
If you don't want to count, switch the unit to pages per hour: time yourself for 15 minutes, count the pages you read, and multiply by four.
Why does Pagehour's finish date differ from this calculator?
This calculator assumes you read the same minutes every day. Pagehour uses what actually happened: the pages you read in the last 14 days, divided by the days from your first reading day in that window to today. Days in between when you didn't read count, so the date still works if you read every other day.
A book you started yesterday is not averaged over 14 days; the count starts at your first reading day. The finish date is today plus the pages left divided by that daily figure, rounded up to whole days. Today already counts as a day in that figure, so the count starts tomorrow.
Pagehour does this arithmetic for every book you read, from your real sessions, and moves the finish date as your pace changes.
The Pagehour app is free to download and works without an account or ads. Pro is an optional upgrade.
Sources
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. Averages of 238 (non-fiction), 260 (fiction) and 183 (aloud) words per minute.
- Pagehour's finish-date rule: the app's pace code (computePace; 14-day window starting at your first reading day in it, days without reading included), version 1.3.3, checked 8 November 2026.