How long does it take to read 200 pages?
Answer: about 5.6 hours, if you read at 300 words per minute and each page has about 500 words.
That is a dense, single-spaced page. A typical book page often has fewer words, so 200 book pages can take less time — about 3.3 hours at the same speed if a page has about 300 words. Your time will also change with the difficulty of the text. Estimate a book or PDF with your own numbers.
This page uses 300 WPM as a working average for the table below. Published research and our own reading-speed test use a range, not one number, so the most useful figure is your own speed. Measure your reading speed (free, about one minute).
The typical reading speed for a fluent adult reading for enjoyment is about 300 words per minute. Reading speed usually slows down when reading technical material such as instruction manuals and scientific research papers. Students or professionals who have a lot of reading may need to read at speeds of 450 words per minute or more in order to consume content faster and increase their productivity.
Reading Time by Number of Pages
The table below shows the estimated time to read a given number of pages. The faster you read, the more time you save.
| Number of pages | 🐢 Slow (150 wpm) | 🙋 Average (300 wpm) | 🐰 Fast (450 wpm) | 🚀 Speed reader (600 wpm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 page | 3.3 minutes | 1.7 minutes | 1.1 minutes | 50 seconds |
| 2 pages | 6.7 minutes | 3.3 minutes | 2.2 minutes | 1.7 minutes |
| 3 pages | 10 minutes | 5 minutes | 3.3 minutes | 2.5 minutes |
| 4 pages | 13.3 minutes | 6.7 minutes | 4.4 minutes | 3.3 minutes |
| 5 pages | 16.7 minutes | 8.3 minutes | 5.6 minutes | 4.2 minutes |
| 10 pages | 33.3 minutes | 16.7 minutes | 11.1 minutes | 8.3 minutes |
| 25 pages | 1.4 hours | 41.7 minutes | 27.8 minutes | 20.8 minutes |
| 50 pages | 2.8 hours | 1.4 hours | 55.6 minutes | 41.7 minutes |
| 100 pages | 5.6 hours | 2.8 hours | 1.9 hours | 1.4 hours |
| 250 pages | 13.9 hours | 6.9 hours | 4.6 hours | 3.5 hours |
| 500 pages | 1.2 days | 13.9 hours | 9.3 hours | 6.9 hours |
| 750 pages | 1.7 days | 20.8 hours | 13.9 hours | 10.4 hours |
| 1000 pages | 2.3 days | 1.2 days | 18.5 hours | 13.9 hours |
How can I read faster?
Use SwiftRead to read up to 3X faster. It helps you get through articles, PDFs and ebooks on the web, or on a phone or tablet, in Focus, Flow or Spotlight mode, with optional text-to-speech in all three. Try SwiftRead. All features included free. A few have daily allowances.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to read 200 pages?
About 5.6 hours at 300 WPM with 500 words per page. At 150 WPM it takes about 11.1 hours; at 450 WPM, about 3.7 hours; and at 600 WPM, about 2.8 hours.
How long does it take to read 200 pages of a book?
Often less than 5.6 hours, because a book page usually has fewer than 500 words. At about 300 words a page and 300 WPM, it takes about 3.3 hours. Use the table as an upper bound, or measure your speed and use a lower words-per-page number in the book and PDF reading-time calculator.
How is this time calculated?
Pages × 500 words per page ÷ words per minute. This page uses 300 WPM for the headline “average.”
What is an average reading speed?
This page uses 300 WPM as a working figure. A 2019 review of 190 studies (Brysbaert) reports about 238 WPM for English non-fiction and 260 WPM for fiction among native-speaking adults. See Everything You Need to Know About Average Reading Speed.
How can I measure my own reading speed?
Use the free reading speed test. It takes about a minute and also checks comprehension.