Reading Time Calculator
Estimate reading time for anything — an article, a chapter, a whole book. Enter the word count (or pages) and a reading speed, and get the time in minutes and hours, plus a daily-reading plan.
How to use this calculator
- Choose words or pages and enter the amount.
- Pick a reading speed — the average adult reads about 240 wpm for non-fiction.
- Press Calculate for total time, daily-plan estimates and the audiobook equivalent.
Formula used
Research (Brysbaert, 2019 meta-analysis) puts average silent reading at ~238 wpm for non-fiction and ~260 for fiction. A paperback page holds roughly 250–300 words; 275 is the working average used here.
Example calculation
An 80,000-word novel at average speed: 80,000 ÷ 238 ≈ 336 minutes = 5 h 36 min.
At 30 minutes a day, that's a 12-day book; as an audiobook it runs about 8.6 hours.
Reading speed, honestly
Most adults read 200–300 words per minute with good comprehension; claims far beyond that trade heavily against understanding. Difficulty matters more than raw speed — dense textbooks read at half your novel pace, and note-taking halves it again, which is why the study-speed option exists.
The practical value of reading time is planning: syllabi, book clubs and exam prep all become schedulable once "read chapters 4–7" translates to "about 3 hours". Publishers use the same math for those "7 min read" labels on articles.
Why use this calculator?
- Plan study schedules by converting reading lists into real hours.
- Estimate whether you'll finish the book before the deadline or book club.
- Compare reading vs audiobook time for the same title.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to read 100 pages?
About 27,500 words — roughly 1 h 55 min at average speed (240 wpm), or closer to 3 hours for dense study material at 150 wpm.
What is a good reading speed?
200–300 wpm with full comprehension is the healthy adult range; ~240 is average for non-fiction. Speed grows more from vocabulary and background knowledge than from eye-movement tricks.
How many words are on a typical page?
Paperbacks run ~250–300 words per page; academic pages and A4 manuscripts can hold 400–500. If you know your book's real count (word count ÷ pages), use the words option for accuracy.