Speaking time calculator: how long your words take to say, and to type
By Ryleigh NewmanPublished
Paste a speech, a script or any text, or type a word count, and the calculator shows how long it takes to read aloud and how long it takes to type. Set your own speeds, or keep the ones from the research on dictation against typing. It also works backward: give it the minutes you have, and it says how many words fit.
This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.
The calculator
Paste some text or type a word count.
The calculator runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent anywhere.
Where the speeds come from
The defaults are rounded from two studies. In a study by researchers at Stanford, the University of Washington and Baidu, people entered short messages by voice at 153 words a minute. In a University of Cambridge study of 168,000 volunteers, people typed on a computer keyboard at 52 words a minute on average, and the fastest reached 120. Both are averages from tests, so your own speed will differ. A speech read for an audience is usually slower than talking to a phone, so for a talk, try 120 to 130.
If you dictate with YapToText, its Statistics page shows your own speaking speed, so you can put your real number in.
Common lengths at the default speeds
Worked out with the same formula as the calculator: words divided by words a minute.
| Words | To say, at 150 a minute | To type, at 52 a minute | Talking saves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 40 seconds | 1 minute 55 seconds | 1 minute 15 seconds |
| 250 | 1 minute 40 seconds | 4 minutes 48 seconds | 3 minutes 8 seconds |
| 500 | 3 minutes 20 seconds | 9 minutes 37 seconds | 6 minutes 17 seconds |
| 1,000 | 6 minutes 40 seconds | 19 minutes 14 seconds | 12 minutes 34 seconds |
| 2,000 | 13 minutes 20 seconds | 38 minutes 28 seconds | 25 minutes 8 seconds |
| 5,000 | 33 minutes 20 seconds | 1 hour 36 minutes | 1 hour 2 minutes |
Say it instead of typing it
The gap in the last column is the reason I dictate. My hands do not work well enough to type for long, and at speaking speed a page takes minutes, not most of an hour. YapToText, the free Mac app I make, types what you say into any app, with the speech model running on your Mac. The dictation speed guide is honest about where typing still wins: code, symbols and short edits.
Related
Sources
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07323 (checked 2026-10-05)
- https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/what-makes-a-faster-typist (checked 2026-10-05)
Questions
How long does it take to say 1,000 words?
About 6 minutes 40 seconds at 150 words a minute. Read aloud to an audience at 120 to 130 words a minute, it is closer to 8 minutes.
How many words is a 5 minute speech?
About 750 words at 150 words a minute, or 600 to 650 at a slower presenting pace.
Is speaking faster than typing?
For getting words down, usually. In the Stanford study speech was 153 words a minute against 52 on the keyboard, and the Cambridge study found 52 words a minute as the average typing speed on a computer.