August 24, 2026 · 4 min read
If you talk at a normal pace, a 5-minute speech lands somewhere around 650–750 words. That's the number I usually aim for.
"Normal pace" is doing a lot of work there, though, because nobody talks at exactly the same speed. Some people race through 800 words in five minutes and sound out of breath; others barely clear 550 and leave dead air. The table below gives a rough idea of what to target at different speeds.
Words per minute at three speeds
| Pace | Words per minute | When you'd use it |
|---|---|---|
| Slow | 110–120 | Eulogies, emotional talks, formal addresses |
| Normal | 130–150 | Class presentations, most speeches |
| Fast | 160–180 | Pitches, when you're short on time |
I'll confess I used to overestimate my own pace. If you've never timed yourself, it's probably safer to assume the slow end of your guess.
Word count for common speech lengths
The same math applied to 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes, rounded to numbers that are easy to write toward:
| Length | Slow (120 wpm) | Normal (140 wpm) | Fast (170 wpm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | ~600 | ~700 | ~850 |
| 10 min | ~1,200 | ~1,400 | ~1,700 |
| 15 min | ~1,800 | ~2,100 | ~2,550 |
| 20 min | ~2,400 | ~2,800 | ~3,400 |
For a standard 5-minute class talk or pitch, 650–700 words usually leaves a small cushion for pauses and the moment you lose your place.
A few things that helped me land on time
The tables are a starting point. When I actually need to finish within a few seconds of a slot, I do these:
- Read the draft out loud with a timer. It beats any estimate I've tried.
- Cut roughly 10% after timing, because on stage I always add pauses and ad-libs that eat time.
- Paste the final script into a speech time calculator to double-check the runtime at my speed. It handles English words and Chinese characters automatically.
Looking back at the times I've run over, it was almost never that I wrote too much. It was that I never timed myself in the first place.
Know exactly how long your speech will run.
Paste your script, pick your speed, get an instant estimate. English or Chinese.
Speech Time Calculator →