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How many words is an 11-minute speech?

An 11-minute speech is about 1,595 words at a typical presentation pace of 145 words per minute.

By the Ace Coach team, built with the best speech coaches · Updated · How we write

Words at different paces

PaceRateWords
Slow120 wpm1,320 words
Lecture145 wpm1,595 words
TED talk169 wpm1,859 words

Paces come from measured averages: about 145 words per minute in university lectures and 169 in TED talks (Wingrove, 2017).

Word counts for common time ranges

Speech slots are often given as a range, like “3 to 5 minutes”. Aim for the middle column, which assumes a typical 145 words per minute.

LengthWords at 145 wpmSlow to TED pace
1–2 minutes145–290120–338
2–3 minutes290–435240–507
3–5 minutes435–725360–845
5–7 minutes725–1,015600–1,183
7–10 minutes1,015–1,450840–1,690
10–15 minutes1,450–2,1751,200–2,535
15–20 minutes2,175–2,9001,800–3,380
20–30 minutes2,900–4,3502,400–5,070

What fits in this length

A conference short talk or a project update with a demo.

Leave a minute of slack. Talks that are timed to the second run over on the day.

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

Rehearse it out loud.

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