If you narrate audiobooks, the most useful number here is finished hours: the length of the final audio you deliver. A finished hour is about 9,300 words of manuscript, so dividing your word count by 9,300 tells you roughly how many hours you will record and how many sessions to plan. It is also how PromptVO prices a book, so this estimate doubles as a quick read on what a project will cost. See our pricing for the full breakdown.

Reading time depends on pace, and pace depends on what you are reading. Professional audiobook narrators land around 130 to 160 words per minute (wpm) once you account for pauses, dialogue, and dramatic beats: faster through action, slower through dense description. Use the calculator to sanity check how a chapter's word count maps to recording time at your own pace. For the underlying numbers and sources, see the FAQ section below.

Prepping a chapter before you record is its own kind of reading. Silent reading for adults averages around 238 to 260 words per minute, far faster than you would ever narrate, which is why a cold read always feels quicker than the booth. Planning your prep time off your silent reading speed keeps your sessions on schedule. The FAQ section below has the research behind these figures.

When it is time to record, PromptVO's teleprompter scrolls with your voice, keeps you at a steady pace, and flags every skipped, added, or swapped word as you read, so you catch misreads in the booth instead of weeks later in a pickup packet. If misreads are what slow your sessions down, here is how narrators avoid them. Try PromptVO on your next book.