A reading time calculator for pages, words, any text or a real book, at the speeds a review of 190 studies found.
5.0(1 rating)Enter pages, words, a text or a book, and see how long it takes to read, at the average speed from 190 studies or at your own.
What you're reading
A page of a recent bestseller holds about 278 words, measured on 51 New York Times bestsellers.
Your reading speed
The averages are from a 2019 review of 190 studies. For your own speed, take my reading speed test.
How long it takes
Enter pages, words, a text or a book to see how long it takes.
How long popular books take you
Well-known books, fiction and nonfiction, timed at your reading speed. Pick one to see its full result.
I can't count these books word by word, since they're still in copyright. So I estimate each one from its unabridged audiobook at 155 words a minute, the pace ACX gives for narrators. On the books I could count, that estimate came within 8% for half of them.
What you type stays in this browser. The speeds are from a 2019 review of 190 studies, the audiobook rate is ACX's, and page lengths are measured on real books.
This free reading time calculator tells you how long pages, words, a text or a whole book take to read.
It uses the reading speeds a 2019 review of 190 studies found, not the 300 words a minute most calculators assume. And a page is measured on real books, not a flat 250 or 500 words.
Here's how long common page counts take, how fast people really read, and how long famous books are.
What is a reading time calculator?
A reading time calculator turns an amount of text into the time it takes to read: pages, a word count, an article or a book.
The answer depends on two things: how many words there are, and how fast you read.
How long does it take to read 100 pages?
At an average speed, 100 pages of a novel take about 1 hour 47 minutes. Here's how common page counts come out at the speeds most adults read fiction:
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 14 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 11 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 9 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 28 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 21 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 17 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 1 h 9 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 53 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 43 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 2 h 19 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 1 h 47 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 1 h 27 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 4 h 38 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 3 h 34 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 2 h 54 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 6 h 57 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 5 h 21 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 4 h 20 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 9 h 16 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 7 h 7 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 5 h 47 min
- Slower (200 wpm)
- 11 h 35 min
- Average (260 wpm)
- 8 h 54 min
- Faster (320 wpm)
- 7 h 14 min
A nonfiction page takes about as long. It holds fewer words, and people read nonfiction a little slower.
How fast do people really read?
The best answer is a 2019 review by Marc Brysbaert of 190 studies with 18,573 adults. Here's what it found for English:
- Average
- 238 wpm
- Most adults
- 175 to 300 wpm
- Average
- 260 wpm
- Most adults
- 200 to 320 wpm
- Average
- 183 wpm
- Most adults
- –
The 300 words a minute you see quoted everywhere is higher than what the studies found, and the review explains where that number came from.
The calculator starts at the average for the kind of text. You can switch to slower, faster, reading aloud, your own number, or the speed you measure in my reading speed test.
How many words are on a page?
Most calculators assume 250 or 500 words a page. Real books vary with the trim size, the font and the spacing.
So I measured it. For 51 recent New York Times bestsellers, I took the words in their unabridged audiobooks and divided them by the book's page count:
- Fiction – about 278 words a page
- Nonfiction – about 251 words a page
Classic editions set smaller type and hold more: the 18 classic novels I counted come to about 370 words a page. For something you wrote, use its word count instead.
How long does it take to read famous books?
I counted the words in these public domain books from their Project Gutenberg texts:
- Words
- 790,393
- At an average speed
- 55 h 21 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 167 days
- Words
- 562,645
- At an average speed
- 36 h 4 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 109 days
- Words
- 460,218
- At an average speed
- 29 h 30 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 89 days
- Words
- 212,409
- At an average speed
- 13 h 37 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 41 days
- Words
- 128,925
- At an average speed
- 8 h 16 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 25 days
- Words
- 127,161
- At an average speed
- 8 h 9 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 25 days
- Words
- 66,309
- At an average speed
- 4 h 39 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 14 days
- Words
- 48,089
- At an average speed
- 3 h 5 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 10 days
- Words
- 10,588
- At an average speed
- 44 min
- At 20 minutes a day
- 3 days
A translation's length is its translator's, so the Odyssey, Meditations and the Art of War name the edition. The calculator has 28 books like these, and my own favorite books, estimated from their audiobooks.
How long is the audiobook?
ACX, Audible's audiobook marketplace, says most narrators read about 9,300 words an hour, or 155 words a minute. So listening takes longer than reading at an average pace: a 100,000-word book runs about 10 hours 45 minutes.
I checked that figure on the 27 counted books that have unabridged recordings. Their median came to 159 words a minute.
How to use the reading time calculator
To see what your minutes add up to, try how many books can I read in a year.
Who is the reading time calculator for?
It's for anyone making time to read:
- Reading time calculator – anyone timing a book, a chapter or an article
- How many books can I read in a year – readers setting a yearly goal
- Reading speed test – anyone who wants their own speed
- Readability checker – writers checking how easy a text is to read
More tools like these are on my free tools page.
Reading Time Calculator FAQs
Questions about reading time and speed? Here's what to know.
A reading time calculator turns pages, words or a text into the time it takes to read.
This one uses reading speeds from a review of 190 studies, and page lengths measured on real books.
100 pages of a novel take about 1 hour 47 minutes at an average speed of 260 words a minute.
Most adults take between 1 hour 27 minutes and 2 hours 19 minutes.
300 pages of a novel take about 5 hours 21 minutes at an average speed.
At 20 minutes a day, that's 17 days.
The average adult reads English silently at 238 words a minute for nonfiction and 260 for fiction, according to a 2019 review of 190 studies.
Reading aloud averages 183 words a minute.
A page of a recent bestseller holds about 278 words for fiction and 251 for nonfiction, measured on 51 New York Times bestsellers.
Classic editions in smaller type hold about 370.
The King James Bible has 790,393 words, which take about 55 hours to read at an average speed.
At 20 minutes a day, that's 167 days.
Divide the book's words by 9,300 for the hours, ACX's figure for how fast most narrators read.
A 100,000-word book runs about 10 hours 45 minutes.
Yes, the reading time calculator is free, with no sign-up.
The math runs in your browser.
I did. I'm Navid Moazzez, and I made the reading time calculator as one of my free tools on navid.me.
More about me.
The reading speed test measures your own speed, and how many books can I read in a year turns your minutes into books.
See all my free tools.
Navid Moazzez
AI business strategist & AI OS builder
Navid Moazzez helps creators and founders master AI and build their own AI Operating System (AI OS) to automate their business and life.
Navid.me is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, I may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more.
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