Speech time calculator

A prepared script read aloud runs at roughly 130 words a minute, so a thousand words is about seven and a half minutes. Conversation is faster, around 150; a nervous speaker is faster still.

The reliable finding about speaking rates is that nerves make people faster, not slower. A speaker who rehearsed comfortably at 130 will deliver at 160 or more in front of an audience, which turns a seven-minute speech into six and leaves them standing there with a minute of silence and nothing planned for it. Rehearse slightly under your target rather than at it. The other systematic error is pauses: a talk with slide changes, a demonstration or any audience interaction needs perhaps twenty percent more wall-clock time than the word count implies.