Words Per Minute Calculator
Words per minute is the simplest rate there is: a count divided by a time.
Words per minute
170
- Seconds per word
- 0.3529
- Minutes for a 250-word page
- 1.4706
Values update as you type. This calculator covers the single scenario its formula assumes — see Common Mistakes for what it leaves out.
The formula this calculator uses
words per minute = words / minutes
- wpm
- Words per minute, the reading or typing rate
- words
- Total words in the passage, or typed
- minutes
- Time from start to finish, in minutes
How to check the result by hand
- 1
Count the words accurately
Use a word count from the document rather than an estimate from page length, since fonts and margins vary widely. If you are counting typing output, use the net figure after corrections.
- 2
Measure the elapsed time
Time from starting to read to finishing, excluding interruptions. A stopwatch is fine for a short passage, and longer tasks are better measured with a timer that runs the whole way.
- 3
Convert the time to minutes
Three minutes and thirty seconds is 3.5 minutes. Mixing minutes and seconds in one division is the most common source of a wrong rate.
- 4
Divide words by minutes
Eight hundred and fifty over five is one hundred and seventy words per minute. This is the rate, and it is the number to reuse for any similar document.
- 5
Invert it if you need seconds per word
Sixty over one hundred and seventy is 0.3529 seconds a word, which is easier to reason about for a short passage than a rate in words.
For worked examples, common mistakes and the limits of this formula, read the full How To Calculate Words Per Minute page.