Reading time calculator
Estimate an article, blog post, or other text's read time on desktop or mobile with this reading-duration calculator for writers, editors, and content designers.
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How the estimate works
PC: 238 words per minute. This is the average adult silent-reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 review and meta-analysis of 190 studies involving 18,573 participants. Most adults in the analysis read between 175 and 300 WPM.
Mobile: 203 words per minute. A study comparing the same users reading email on phones and computers measured 274.65 WPM on phones versus 322.28 WPM on computers—about 15% slower. The tool applies that ratio to the 238 WPM English baseline: 238 × 274.65 ÷ 322.28 ≈ 203.
The calculation is word count ÷ reading speed. These are practical averages, not predictions for every reader: familiarity, text difficulty, font size, layout, language fluency, and whether someone skims or reads carefully can all change the result.
Sources: Brysbaert, 2019, Journal of Memory and Language В· Bao et al., 2011, Smart Phone Use by Non-Mobile Business Users