Phone conversations in English run at 164 to 236 words a minute, depending on how the pauses are counted. That range comes from a University of Pennsylvania count of 2,438 calls.
In short:
- Over a whole phone call, speech ran at 196 words a minute. With the silences cut out, the same calls gave 236 (Yuan, Liberman and Cieri, 2006).
- The famous "150 words a minute" traces to a tutorial page of the National Center for Voice and Speech. That page names no study, sample or method.
- My own dictation runs at about 87 words a minute across 476,777 words, pauses counted. That is one person thinking as he talks, not a typical result.
I build Typally, and it comes up near the end. I opened every source below on October 5, 2026, and linked each one.
How many words per minute do people speak in conversation?
About 196 words a minute over a whole phone call, and the spread is wide. In 2006, Jiahong Yuan, Mark Liberman and Christopher Cieri of the University of Pennsylvania measured 2,438 recorded phone calls in English. They added up the words both people said and divided by the length of the call. Single calls ranged from 111 to 291.
With silences and noises taken out, the same calls ran at 236 words a minute. Counted turn by turn it was 164, because the turns overlap and the overlap gets timed twice. A speaking rate means little until you know what happened to the pauses.
Where does "150 words a minute" come from?
From a tutorial page, as far as I can trace it. The National Center for Voice and Speech has a page called Voice Qualities. It says, in parentheses: "The average rate of speech for English speakers in the United States is about 150 words per minute, by the way."
The page names no study, no sample and no method. I could not find the research behind the number, so treat 150 as a round rule of thumb. It isn't far off: it sits just under the lowest phone-call figure.
How fast do people speak when presenting, narrating or reading aloud?
Presenters are advised to go slower than conversation, and reading aloud lands close to it.
- Presenting: 100 to 165. The page for Speaker Coach, Microsoft's rehearsal tool for PowerPoint, says this as of October 2026: "Based on field study and past academic research, Speaker Coach recommends that presenters speak at a rate of 100 to 165 words per minute". It is advice, not a count of what speakers do.
- Audiobooks: about 155. ACX, Audible's marketplace for audiobook producers, wrote in 2013: "We estimate that about 9,300 words equals one hour of finished audio". Divided by 60, that is 155 words a minute.
- Reading aloud: 183. Marc Brysbaert of Ghent University pooled 77 studies with 5,965 readers in 2019. Their average rate for reading aloud was 183 words a minute.
- The record: 655. Guinness World Records lists Sean Shannon of Canada. He recited Hamlet's 260-word "To be or not to be" in 23.8 seconds on August 30, 1995.
Auctioneers are often put at 250 words a minute. I found no measurement behind that, so I left it out.
How fast does one person speak while dictating?
About 87 words a minute in my case, below every figure above. On September 30, 2026, my Typally Insights screen showed 476,777 words in 91:31:07 of talk time, across 5,655 dictations.
One long dictation was quicker: 548 words in 5 minutes 46 seconds, about 95 words a minute. The average one is about 84 words in 58 seconds.
Three things explain the gap:
- The pauses are counted. Talk time is the whole recording, so every second I spend thinking is in it. The 236 above had its silences removed.
- I am composing. I dictate prompts to Claude and ChatGPT, and I decide what to say as I say it. A narrator reads a finished script. On a call, the other person talks while you think.
- It is one person. My rate says nothing about yours.
The cleanup is switched off on my computer, so my fillers are in the count.
How do you measure your own words per minute?
Count the words you said and divide by the minutes it took. You need a transcript and a timer.
- Turn on dictation to get the text. On Windows, press Windows key + H (Microsoft's step; it needs internet). On a Mac, turn on Dictation under System Settings, Keyboard (Apple's step).
- Start a stopwatch and talk for 2 or 3 minutes about something you know. Don't read from a page: reading aloud is a different rate.
- Paste the text into any word counter, then divide. For my long dictation: 548 words divided by 5.77 minutes is 95.
Both built-in tools are free and enough for this test. Apple's page gives one limit: "Dictation stops automatically when no speech is detected for 30 seconds." Neither support page mentions a word count or a timer, so keep the stopwatch. Longer guides: Windows, Mac, any computer.
Decide what counts as a word before you compare two results. Here is an example I wrote with fillers in it, 51 words:
um so hi Dana uh thanks for sending the draft over like I read it this morning and I think the intro is uh a bit long you know so can we cut the first two paragraphs and um move the pricing table up and I'll send my notes by Thursday
Typally's cleanup returned this on October 5, 2026, in 39 words:
Hi Dana, thanks for sending the draft. I read it this morning and think the intro is a bit long. Can we cut the first two paragraphs and move the pricing table up? I'll send my notes by Thursday.
Same message, 12 fewer words. Count from a cleaned transcript and your rate reads lower than what you said out loud.
How many words is a 5, 10 or 20 minute speech?
A 5-minute speech is 500 to 825 words. Multiply the minutes by your pace: 100 and 165 are the ends of Microsoft's range, and 150 is the round number.
- 1 minute: 100 to 165 words (150)
- 3 minutes: 300 to 495 (450)
- 5 minutes: 500 to 825 (750)
- 10 minutes: 1,000 to 1,650 (1,500)
- 15 minutes: 1,500 to 2,475 (2,250)
- 20 minutes: 2,000 to 3,300 (3,000)
- 30 minutes: 3,000 to 4,950 (4,500)
Is speaking faster than typing?
At the usual averages, yes, even at a slow speaking pace. At a commonly cited 40 words a minute (an average, not my measurement), typing my 476,777 words would take about 199 hours. Saying them took 91 hours 31 minutes.
Is Speaking Faster Than Typing? goes through the typing studies.
Where does Typally fit?
Typally, voice typing for Mac and Windows, is the app I build, and it counted my numbers above. Hold your shortcut key, talk, let go, and the text appears where your cursor is: ChatGPT, Claude, Google Docs or any other app.
The cleanup is on by default: it removes the ums and fixes the punctuation and capitals. While you talk, the recording indicator shows a timer. The Insights screen adds up your words and your talk time.
It needs an internet connection. It listens only while you hold the key, the audio is discarded after transcription, and your history stays on your computer.
For your number once, a built-in tool and a stopwatch will do. To have it counted every day, download Typally free at typally.com for Windows or Mac. The free plan gives you 100 minutes a month and doesn't ask for a card.
What else do people ask about words per minute speaking?
What is the average English speaking rate in words per minute?
Across 2,438 English phone calls, it was 196 words a minute over the whole call, 164 turn by turn, and 236 without silences. The popular "about 150" has no study attached.
Is 150 words per minute a good speaking pace?
For a prepared talk, yes: it is inside Microsoft's advised 100 to 165 and near ACX's 155 for audiobooks. As "the average", it has no study behind it that I could find.
Is Typally free?
There's a free plan with 100 minutes of dictation a month, forever, and it doesn't ask for a card. Pro has a 14-day free trial, and the trial needs a card.