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Reading time calculator
How long does it take to read a book, 100 pages or 2,000 words? Type a page or word count, or paste the text, and see the time at your reading speed, out loud, and the day you finish.
Time to read
Out loud
at about 180 words a minute
You finish
Type a page count, a word count, or paste some text.
How long does it take to read 100 pages?
At an average 250 words a minute and about 275 words on a page, 100 pages takes about 1 hour 50 minutes. Here is how long common page counts take at different reading speeds:
| Pages | Relaxed 200 wpm | Average adult 250 wpm | Fast 300 wpm | Very fast 400 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 pages | 41m | 33m | 28m | 21m |
| 50 pages | 1h 09m | 55m | 46m | 34m |
| 100 pages | 2h 18m | 1h 50m | 1h 32m | 1h 09m |
| 150 pages | 3h 26m | 2h 45m | 2h 18m | 1h 43m |
| 200 pages | 4h 35m | 3h 40m | 3h 03m | 2h 18m |
| 300 pages | 6h 53m | 5h 30m | 4h 35m | 3h 26m |
| 400 pages | 9h 10m | 7h 20m | 6h 07m | 4h 35m |
| 500 pages | 11h 28m | 9h 10m | 7h 38m | 5h 44m |
| 1000 pages | 22h 55m | 18h 20m | 15h 17m | 11h 28m |
Pages are counted at 275 words each, a typical paperback page. More pages: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100, 120, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 600, 700, 800, 1000.
How long does it take to read 1,000 words?
Word counts matter for essays, articles and speeches. Reading silently is fastest; reading out loud is slower, and a speech is slower again because speakers pause.
| Words | Silently 250 wpm | Out loud 180 wpm | As a speech 130 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 words | 1m | 1m 23s | 1m 55s |
| 300 words | 1m 12s | 1m 40s | 2m 18s |
| 500 words | 2m | 2m 47s | 3m 51s |
| 750 words | 3m | 4m 10s | 5m 46s |
| 1,000 words | 4m | 5m 33s | 7m 42s |
| 1,500 words | 6m | 8m 20s | 12m |
| 2,000 words | 8m | 11m | 15m |
| 2,500 words | 10m | 14m | 19m |
| 3,000 words | 12m | 17m | 23m |
| 4,000 words | 16m | 22m | 31m |
| 5,000 words | 20m | 28m | 38m |
| 10,000 words | 40m | 56m | 1h 17m |
How reading time is calculated
Reading time = words ÷ reading speed. For a book, the words are the page count times the words on a page. A 300-page paperback at 275 words a page is 82,500 words; at 250 words a minute that is 330 minutes, or 5 hours 30 minutes. Change any number in the calculator and the answer updates.
Average reading speed
In a 2019 review of reading studies, psychologist Marc Brysbaert found that adults read silently at about 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction, and read out loud at about 183. This calculator uses 250 words a minute as the average and 180 for reading aloud. Speed changes with the text: dense textbooks and unfamiliar subjects are slower, light fiction faster. Speed-reading claims of 1,000 words a minute or more usually come with much lower understanding.
How long does it take to read a book?
Typical word counts by kind of book, and the reading time at 250 words a minute:
| Type of book | Typical words | Reading time |
|---|---|---|
| Short story | 3,000 to 7,500 | 12m to 30m |
| Novella | 20,000 to 40,000 | 1h 20m to 2h 40m |
| Middle-grade novel | 30,000 to 55,000 | 2h 00m to 3h 40m |
| Young adult novel | 60,000 to 80,000 | 4h 00m to 5h 20m |
| Adult novel | 80,000 to 100,000 | 5h 20m to 6h 40m |
| Fantasy novel | 100,000 to 130,000 | 6h 40m to 8h 40m |
| Epic fantasy | 200,000 to 400,000 | 13h 20m to 26h 40m |
For a specific book, the audiobook length pages show how long each one takes to read and to listen to, such as Project Hail Mary, Fourth Wing, The Hobbit and Atomic Habits. Long reads have their own page too: how long it takes to read the Bible.
Read or listen?
Audiobook narrators read at about 155 words a minute, so listening at 1x is slower than reading silently. At 1.5x an audiobook is close to average reading speed. The audiobook speed calculator times any audiobook at any speed.
Questions
How long does it take to read 100 pages?
About 1 hour 50 minutes at an average reading speed of 250 words a minute, with roughly 275 words on a page. A relaxed reader takes about 2 hours 18 minutes, a fast reader about 1 hour 32 minutes.
How long does it take to read a book?
Most adult novels are 80,000 to 100,000 words, which takes about 5 hours 20 minutes to 6 hours 40 minutes at 250 words a minute. A 300-page paperback takes about 5 hours 30 minutes.
What is the average reading speed?
A large 2019 review of reading studies by Marc Brysbaert found that adults read silently at about 238 words a minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction, and about 183 words a minute out loud. This calculator uses 250 as the average.
How many words are on a page?
A typical paperback novel has about 250 to 300 words a page. Hardcovers, textbooks and large-format books often hold more, and children's books far fewer. Change the words-per-page box to match your book.
How long does it take to read 1,000 words?
About 4 minutes silently and about 5 minutes 33 seconds out loud. As a speech, at around 130 words a minute, it takes about 7 minutes 42 seconds.
How long will it take to read this?
Choose Paste text, paste the article, essay, chapter or speech, and the calculator counts the words and shows how long it takes to read silently and out loud.
How long does it take to read the Bible?
The King James Bible is about 783,137 words, which takes about 52 hours at 250 words a minute, or roughly 9 minutes a day to finish in a year.
How can I find my own reading speed?
Time yourself reading a page for one minute and count the words, or read for ten minutes and divide the words by ten. Choose "My own speed" and type the result.