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Free tool · Reading time

Reading time calculator

Paste a post to see how many words it has and how long it takes to read. It runs in your browser; nothing you paste is sent anywhere.

What you are pasting

Reading time

0 min read

Words

0

225 words a minute, rounded to the nearest minute and never under one. Code blocks and Markdown symbols are not counted.

How it works

  1. Leave out what is not read as prose

    In text or Markdown: code blocks and inline code, images, and the symbols # > * _ ~ | -. A link counts as its words. In HTML: the tags.

  2. Count the words

    Anything between spaces that has at least one letter or digit, in any script, so Hindi, Portuguese and Spanish are counted the same way as English.

  3. Divide by 225 and round

    To the nearest minute, and never under one minute for a post with any words at all.

It is the same calculation CMSKite makes when a post is saved, so the number here is the “min read” a post shows on your free blog link and returns in the API (readingMinutes).

Why 225 words a minute

A 2019 review of 190 studies by Marc Brysbaert put the average adult’s silent reading of English non-fiction at about 238 words a minute, with most people between 175 and 300. A blog post is read with headings, lists and the occasional look back, so 225 is a fair middle that does not promise a faster read than most people get.

Treat the result as a hint for the reader, not a target for the writer. A post should be as long as its answer needs.

Sources

Questions

How long should a blog post be?
As long as it takes to answer the question well, and no longer. A how-to with steps may be 600 words; a guide that compares options may be 2,000. Length on its own is not what ranks a post.
Why does another tool give a different number?
Tools use different speeds (200, 238, 265 words a minute) and count different things. Some include code and image text, some round up. This one uses 225 and leaves out code and markup.
Does it work for Hindi?
Yes. Words are counted by the spaces between them, which works for Devanagari as it does for English. Reading speeds differ between languages, so for Hindi the minutes are a rougher guide.
Do I have to add reading time myself in CMSKite?
No. Every post’s word count and reading time are worked out when you save it, and the free blog link shows the “min read” on its own.

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