Book Reading Time Calculator
How long a book takes to read from its page count or word count and your reading speed — total and remaining hours, days at your daily reading habit, the finish date, pages per day, the audiobook listening time and a comparison table by reading speed.
How it works
words = pages × words per page (or the word count you enter) · reading time = words ÷ words per minute · time left = reading time × (100% − % already read) · reading days = ⌈time left ÷ minutes per day⌉ · pages per day = minutes per day × wpm ÷ words per page · audiobook time = words ÷ (155 wpm × playback speed)
Page counts mislead because typesetting varies — a mass-market paperback packs about 300 words on a page while a large-print edition holds half that — so the calculator turns the book into words first, either from pages × words per page or from a word count you type in (handy for e-books, where publishers and sites often list the word count). Dividing by your reading speed gives the total time. Adults read silently at roughly 240 words a minute on average (about 238 for non-fiction and 260 for fiction in a large 2019 review), dense material slows most people to 150–200, and fast readers manage 350 or more. Spreading that time over the minutes you read each day gives the number of reading days and a finish date; under More options you can enter how far you have already read, read only some days of the week, choose a start date and pick an audiobook playback speed. Narrators read at about 155 words a minute, so the audiobook usually takes a little longer than reading. Tables compare the whole book at other reading speeds and the finish date with other daily habits.
Worked example
A 420-page novel at 275 words a page is 420 × 275 = 115,500 words. At 240 words a minute that is 115,500 ÷ 240 ≈ 481 minutes, or 8 h 1 min. Reading 30 minutes a day you get through about 26 pages a day and need ⌈481 ÷ 30⌉ = 17 days, so starting today you finish on the 17th day. The audiobook at normal speed takes about 115,500 ÷ 155 ≈ 12 h 25 min. If you are already 40% in, the time left is 481 × 0.6 ≈ 289 minutes — 10 more days.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find my reading speed?
Read for exactly two minutes, count the words you covered (lines read × average words per line works), and divide by two. Most adults land between 200 and 300 words per minute for fiction; use the reading-speed calculator if you prefer a guided test.
How many words is a typical novel?
Around 70,000–100,000; young-adult novels are often 50,000–80,000 and epic fantasy can pass 250,000. If you know the word count, choose “Word count” to skip the words-per-page guess.
How many pages can I read in an hour?
At 240 words a minute and 275 words a page, about 52 pages an hour. A dense textbook page of 450 words drops that to about 32; a large-print page of 150 words lifts it to about 96.
Is listening to the audiobook faster?
Usually not at normal speed: narrators read at roughly 150–160 words a minute, slower than most people read silently. At 1.5× (about 230 wpm) listening takes about as long as reading at an average pace.
What if I don’t read every day?
Open More options and set the reading days per week. The number of reading days stays the same, but the finish date moves later because the days you skip are counted on the calendar.
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This calculator is for educational purposes. Double-check important results before acting on them.