Reading Time Calculator
How long will that assigned reading actually take? Enter pages, a word count, or paste the text, then pick how you are reading it — skimming, reading normally, studying for an exam, or learning it by heart. The answer comes back as an honest range.
Works offline — your inputs never leave this device. How that works
2.5–4.2 hours
About 7 sittings of 30 minutes. Reading speed varies enough between people and between texts that a range is the honest answer.
🔢 Show the math
- 40 pages × 650 words per page = 26,000 words.
- 26,000 ÷ 130 words per minute = 200 minutes.
- Reading speed varies by roughly a quarter either way between people and between texts, so the honest answer is a range.
Grading scales vary by institution — your school's own table and syllabus govern. Conversions shown here follow common published conventions.
🎓 Understand this tool
What it is
This estimates how long a piece of reading will take, with the crucial distinction most reading-time tools skip: how you are reading it. Skimming and studying differ by a factor of several, not a few percent.
How it works
Words divided by a reading speed gives minutes. The speed comes from the mode you pick — skimming, reading normally, studying for an exam, or memorising — and where you give pages rather than words, a words-per-page figure for that kind of material converts first.
Getting the most from it
- Pick the mode honestly. If you will be examined on it, "studying" is the right setting even when you would rather it were not.
- Choose the right page type when working from a page count: a textbook page holds roughly twice a novel page.
- Set the sitting length to what you actually manage in one go, so the number of sessions means something.
- Plan around the upper end of the range rather than the midpoint. Reading almost never goes faster than expected.
Reading your result
The headline is a range rather than a single figure, because reading speed varies substantially between people and between texts. The sittings figure is usually the more actionable one: it converts an abstract number of hours into how many evenings this is going to take.
What it can't tell you
It knows nothing about difficulty, your familiarity with the subject, or how much note-taking you do alongside. Dense unfamiliar material with heavy annotation can run well past the slowest setting here, and nothing about a word count predicts that.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the estimate change so much with the mode?
Because skimming and studying are different activities, not different speeds of the same one. Skimming for structure runs several times faster than working through a dense chapter you will be examined on, and quoting a single figure for both is what makes most reading-time estimates useless for coursework.
Why give a range instead of one number?
Adult reading speed varies widely between individuals and across material, so a single figure implies a precision that does not exist. The range shown is roughly a quarter either side of the midpoint, which is honest about the variation without being so wide it stops being useful for planning.
How many words are on a page?
It depends entirely on what you are reading, which is why the tool asks. A textbook page runs around 650 words, a novel page closer to 300, a journal page higher again, and a lecture slide a fraction of any of them. Picking the right one matters more than the page count.
Does pasting my text send it anywhere?
No. The word count is calculated in your browser and nothing is transmitted, which is true of every tool on this site. You can verify it by disconnecting from the internet — the calculator keeps working, because there is nothing for it to call.
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