How many words is a 60-second video?

Around 150 words at a normal voiceover pace, or 140 if the delivery is conversational with real pauses. The more useful number is 85 words, which is the 34 seconds where completion rate peaks on TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Writing to 150 gets you inside the limit; writing to 85 gets you watched to the end.

Why is spoken time longer than reading time?

Silent reading of English prose averages around 238 words per minute, while reading the same text aloud lands nearer 180 and drops further once you add the pauses a listener needs. The gap is roughly 40%, so a script that feels like a tight 30 seconds on screen routinely lands at 45 in the booth. This tool shows both figures side by side for exactly that reason.

What speaking rate should I use for an AI voiceover?

Start at 150 wpm. ElevenLabs, PlayHT and similar engines cluster near that at 1.0x speed, and because a synthetic voice pauses far more consistently than a human it holds the estimate tighter than any human read will. If you are timing a person rather than a model, record yourself for a minute, count the words, and put that number in the custom field.

Does the timer handle numbers, acronyms and stage directions?

Stage directions in [square brackets] and (parentheses) are excluded by default, with a toggle to count them, because nobody reads them aloud. Numerals are counted correctly as one word each, but be aware that a written figure takes longer to say than it looks: "$1,499" is one word and roughly two seconds of speech, and spelled-out acronyms behave the same way. If your script is dense with figures, add a few seconds by hand.

Should I speed up the read or cut words?

Cut. Pushing a read from 150 to 185 wpm recovers about nine seconds per minute and costs you every pause the writing was built around, which is usually the thing carrying the emphasis. Cutting words costs nothing and almost always improves the script, which is why this tool tells you the exact number to remove rather than suggesting you talk faster.

Free Tool

Script Timer

Paste a script and see how long it takes to say, at six real delivery paces. Where it overruns a Short, an intro or an ad slot, you get the exact number of words to cut.

Your script

Paste or type the script

Stage directions

Text inside [square brackets] and (parentheses) is treated as direction, not dialogue.

Delivery pace

TTS voices at 1.0x speed. The most predictable rate on this list.

Words per minute

60300

Spoken duration

0 words at 150 wpm

0:00

Read silently, the same text takes about 0:00. Reading is roughly 238 wpm, which is why a script always runs longer than it feels on the page.

Words

Characters

0 without spaces

Sentences

0 words

Avg sentence

Comfortable to read aloud

Does it fit?

Every target is scored against your word count at 150 wpm. Where the script overruns, the number is exactly how many words to cut.

Short-form sweet spot · 0:34

Where completion rate peaks on TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Below this, most viewers reach the end.

Waiting for a script

TikTok / Reel / Short · 1:00

The hard ceiling for a Short. Fitting it and hitting the sweet spot are different problems.

Waiting for a script

YouTube long-form intro · 0:30

Hook, premise and stakes before the title card. Longer and the retention graph shows it.

Waiting for a script

30-second ad · 28s of copy

Two seconds held back for the music bed and the end tag.

Waiting for a script

15-second ad · 13.5s of copy

Roughly one sentence and a call to action. Nothing survives being rushed here.

Waiting for a script

Trimming beats speeding up

Pushing the read from 150 to 185 wpm buys you about nine seconds a minute and costs you every pause the writing depends on. Cutting the words is free. When you are happy with the timing, turn the script into a voiced video and the AI voice will hold the pace you just planned for.

Why your script always runs long

Most words-to-minutes tools hardcode a single rate, usually 130, and present the answer as a fact. It is not one rate, it is a range that spans four minutes on a thousand words. A meditation narrator and a commercial voice artist reading identical copy will finish nearly two minutes apart, and neither of them is wrong. Any timer that does not ask how you intend to deliver the script is guessing on your behalf.

The second thing they miss is that elapsed time is not proportional to words alone. Pauses attach to punctuation and paragraph breaks, not to word count, so a script of short, punchy sentences runs measurably longer than the same word count written in flowing ones. That is why the sentence count and average sentence length sit next to the duration here rather than being decorative. If your average sentence is under eight words and the read still overruns, the structure is what is costing you, not the vocabulary.

And when a script does overrun, the reflex is to speed up the read. It is the wrong lever. Going from 150 to 185 words per minute buys about nine seconds a minute and spends every pause the writing depended on, which is usually where the emphasis lived. Cutting words is free and nearly always improves the script. So this tool gives you the cut, in words, for each slot you might be writing to. No other timer we can find will tell you that a script is 41 words too long for a Short; they will only tell you it is 0:14 over, and leave you to do the arithmetic in your head while the client waits.

Frequently asked questions

Timing scripts for voiceover and video

About 6 minutes 40 seconds at 150 words per minute, which is where most AI voices and unhurried presenters sit. The honest range is wide: roughly 9 minutes at a slow, deliberate 110 wpm and about 5 minutes 25 seconds at a fast 185 wpm. That is a four-minute spread on the same page of text, which is why the pace control matters more than the word count.