Calculate script length in minutes from a word count or pasted text at your speaking pace, or find how many words fit a 30-second or 60-second script.

Estimate speaking time plus any added pauses.

Spoken-delivery estimate, not film runtime. Pace presets are examples; use a pace suited to your speaker.

Pauses and page estimate

Blank means zero. Added once to the total duration.

Blank means 250. Page estimate only; not screenplay timing.

Script Length Formula

This estimates spoken delivery time at a chosen speaking pace, with any additional pauses entered separately. Pace presets are illustrative, not a recommended pace for every speaker.

Total duration (seconds) = (word count ÷ words per minute) × 60 + pause seconds.

Variables:

  • SL is estimated total spoken-delivery time in seconds, including additional pause time P
  • WC is the script word count; pasted text counts whitespace-separated tokens, including punctuation-only tokens
  • WPM is the words per minute rate (words per minute)

Divide word count by pace and multiply by 60, then add any pause seconds. For a target duration T, the unrounded word budget is WPM × (T − P) ÷ 60, displayed to the nearest whole word; the required pace is WC × 60 ÷ (T − P). Target duration must exceed pause time. Estimated pages are word count divided by your words per page (default 250), independently of timing.

What is a Script Length?

Script length can describe a text’s word or page count. This calculator estimates spoken delivery from word count and pace; its words-per-page setting estimates page density and does not predict film runtime. The separate one-screenplay-page-per-minute rule is a rough guideline for conventionally formatted screenplays, and action, dialogue and performance can change actual runtime. Rehearse or time the production to assess its duration.

How to Calculate Script Length?

The following steps outline how to calculate the Script Length using the given formula:

  1. First, choose script duration, target word count or speaking pace. For script duration, enter a whole word count or select pasted text. The inherited text convention splits on whitespace, so punctuation-only tokens and unspaced text each count as tokens; use a manual count when you need another convention.
  2. Next, select a pace preset or enter a custom pace in words per minute. Speaking pace mode instead requires word count and target minutes/seconds; blank time components mean zero, and seconds must be a whole number from 0 to 59.
  3. If needed, enter additional pause seconds and words per page under Pauses and page estimate. Defaults are 0 added seconds and 250 words/page; blank optional fields use these same defaults.
  4. Select Calculate. Duration includes pauses; target words and required pace use the remaining speaking time. Clock results round to the nearest second, while positive subsecond results show seconds.
  5. Review the expandable details for the unrounded calculation and word-count convention. Character counts are shown only for pasted text as UTF-16 units including whitespace; they are not inferred from manual or target words.

Example Problem:

Use the following variables as an example problem to test your knowledge.

Word count of the script (WC) = 500

Words per minute rate (WPM) = 120. With no additional pauses, 500 ÷ 120 × 60 = 250 seconds, or 4 minutes 10 seconds. Adding 10 seconds of pauses gives 4 minutes 20 seconds. At 250 words per page, the page estimate is 2 pages; this is not a screenplay-runtime conversion.