How many words per minute do people speak

Conversational English is usually put at about 150 words a minute, so multiply your minutes by 150: a 1 minute speech is about 150 words, a 2 minute speech about 300 and a 5 minute speech about 750. If you talk slowly, use 120 instead; if you talk fast, use 160. Then time yourself, because your own pace beats any average.

Multiply the minutes by your pace to get the words

Words = minutes × words per minute. The table shows three paces: 120 (slow and deliberate), 150 (the common benchmark) and 160 (brisk; an illustrative faster pace, not a measured norm).

Video length	120 wpm	150 wpm	160 wpm
30 seconds	60	75	80
1 minute	120	150	160
2 minutes	240	300	320
3 minutes	360	450	480
5 minutes	600	750	800
10 minutes	1,200	1,500	1,600

Read across the rows to see how much a change in pace matters. On a 5 minute speech, going from a slow to a brisk pace is a 200 word difference. That is nearly a full page of text.

To go the other way, divide: a 450 word script at 150 words a minute takes 3 minutes. For a 2 minute video, a script anywhere from 240 to 320 words can fit, depending on how you talk.

The 150 figure is a common benchmark, not a measured law

About 150 words a minute is the number most often given for conversational American English. It is widely attributed to the National Center for Voice and Speech. The Center’s own publication could not be checked, so the claim comes second-hand, for example from VirtualSpeech, which credits the Center but does not link a primary source. Treat 150 as a sensible starting point and not as a fact about you.

Two other points help anchor it:

• Narration: ACX, Audible’s audiobook production platform, says most narrators record about 9,300 words an hour. That is about 155 words a minute, close to the 150 figure.
• Slow and deliberate: 120 words a minute is advice, not a measured norm. It is a pace many speakers use when they want each word to land. Use it as a cautious setting for a script that must be clear.

The number depends on how you count

Even in research, one speaker can have different “rates” depending on the method. A study of English telephone conversations by Yuan, Liberman and Cieri (Interspeech 2006) looked at 2,438 recorded Switchboard calls. Dividing words by the whole call time gave an average of 196 words a minute, and single calls ranged from 111 to 291. Leaving out silences and noises raised the average to 236.

Those were unscripted calls between two people, not videos, so do not use 196 as your target. The lesson is about counting. Silence changes the number. For a video script, count the way a viewer experiences it: all the time from the first word to the last, pauses included. That is why a script should budget slightly under the full time.

Four things change your pace

1. Pauses. Every breath, beat and emphasis adds seconds without adding words. A script with many short lines and clear pauses runs slower than a dense paragraph.
2. Nerves. If you know you rush on camera, plan with the 120 column and see how it feels.
3. Reading versus talking. You may read at a different speed than you talk. Do not guess which way you go. Measure it by reading aloud.
4. Content density. Numbers, names and new ideas need more time than familiar phrases. A script full of figures should be shorter than one that tells a simple story.

Plan for the pace you will actually use

Choose the pace first, then the word count. A coach recording a calm 2 minute answer might pick 130 words a minute and write about 260 words. A fast, high-energy clip might use 160 and write 320. Neither is wrong. The mistake is writing 320 words and speaking at 120, which makes a 2 minute video run about 2 minutes 40 seconds.

Find your own pace in two minutes

1. Take a section of your script, or any text written the way you speak.
2. Start a timer and read it aloud at the pace you would use on camera. Do not rush; do not perform.
3. Stop at exactly one minute and count the words you reached.
4. Do it a second time and average the two.

That number is your words a minute. Use it in the formula for every script after this.

If you prefer to skip the counting, paste your script into the script timer and set your pace to see how long it takes to say. When you record with a prompter, the same idea applies: Rolling, an iPhone teleprompter coming soon to the App Store, lets you set a reading speed from 40 to 300 words a minute with Auto-scroll. It is for iPhone with iOS 26 or later, and the app is in English.

Use the pace to shape the script

Once you know your pace, work backward. Pick the length, multiply by your words a minute and write to that number. The video script template gives a word budget for each part of a 60 second and a 2 minute script, and how to write a script for a video walks through the whole method.