Free tools / Speaking pace
Speaking pace test
Pace is the first thing an audience feels and the last thing a speaker measures. Record a minute and find your words per minute — fillers excluded, so the number reflects actual content.
Say this
“Walk through a decision you made recently and why you made it.”
Start recording
Up to 60 seconds. Audio is scored in memory and deleted right after — we never store recordings.
The comfortable range
For meetings, presentations and interviews in English, 130–160 words a minute is comfortable for most listeners. Below 110 can sound hesitant; above 180, listeners start losing the middle of sentences, especially on a video call with compression and delay.
Numbers are not the whole story. A fast speaker who pauses cleanly at the end of each thought is easier to follow than a slow speaker who never stops. That is why the full test scores long pauses separately.
How to change it without sounding rehearsed
Do not slow every word. Put a real stop at the end of each thought, long enough to breathe. The average speed drops and clarity rises, without the sing-song delivery people use when they try to “slow down”.
Practise one 30-second answer at your normal speed, then again with stops. Most people find the second version feels slow to them and normal to everyone else.
Questions
- Are fillers included in the words per minute?
- No. Fillers are excluded, so the number reflects the words that carry meaning.
- What counts as a long pause?
- A silence longer than 1.5 seconds between two words.
- Is a fast pace bad?
- Not by itself. Fast and clear beats slow and rambling. The test also measures pauses and fillers for that reason.
The full test scores all six components
One recording, a score out of 100, a marked transcript, one tip and one drill.
Take the free test