1 min read
Do you need to calculate reading time for your blog posts or articles? We’ve been using a simple formula for a long time to calculate the read time for our posts and articles.* It’s based on the generally understood statistic that most adults read at about 200 words per minute.
(The average reading rate is actually 238, according to this study, but 200 is a nice compromise and is easier to remember.)
Here’s the formula:
- Get your total word count (including the headline and subhead).
- Divide total word count by 200. The number before the decimal is your minutes.
- Take the decimal points and multiply that number by .60. That will give you your seconds.
Example:
783 words ÷ 200 = 3.915 (3 = 3 minutes)
.915 × .60 = .549 (a little over 54 seconds, so I’d bump it up to 60 seconds, or a full minute)
reading time for this example article is 4 minutes
It seems like reading time calculations go off and on trend, but we like to include them to give people a heads-up before they dive into a post or newsletter article. Hope this reading time formula helps you out!
*We found the original formula online, but I no longer remember where. If it might be yours, let us know.
