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By the Ace Coach team, built with the best speech coaches · Updated · How we write
Time at different paces
| Pace | Rate | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Slow | 120 wpm | 6 min 40 s |
| Lecture | 145 wpm | 5 min 31 s |
| TED talk | 169 wpm | 4 min 44 s |
Paces come from measured averages: about 145 words per minute in university lectures and 169 in TED talks (Wingrove, 2017).
What fits in this length
A five- to six-minute talk, a eulogy, or a graduation speech.
Read it out loud with a timer before you trust the word count. Pauses and laughs add time.
Check your own pace
Everyone's pace is different, and most people speed up when they're nervous. Time yourself reading one paragraph of your script out loud, or use how fast do I talk for a 60-second test. Then plug your number into the speech time calculator.
Other lengths
- How long is a 100-word speech?
- How long is a 200-word speech?
- How long is a 300-word speech?
- How long is a 400-word speech?
- How long is a 500-word speech?
- How long is a 600-word speech?
- How long is a 750-word speech?
- How long is a 1,000-word speech?
- How long is a 1,200-word speech?
- How long is a 1,500-word speech?
- How long is a 2,000-word speech?
- How long is a 2,500-word speech?
- How long is a 3,000-word speech?
How to memorize a speech
Public speaking practice
How to stop talking too fast