What each number means
- Words: every word in the caption text.
- Speaking speed (WPM): total words divided by the video’s length in minutes. It includes pauses and music breaks, so it reads a little lower than the speaker’s pace while actually talking.
- Reading time: how long the transcript takes to read at about 230 words per minute, a typical adult reading speed.
- Characters: total characters including spaces, useful for platforms with character limits.
- Sentences: counted from ., ?, and ! marks.
- Paragraphs: an estimate at about 150 words per paragraph, handy for planning an article.
Why the sentence count can look low
Auto-generated captions often have little or no punctuation, so a whole video can register as only a few “sentences”. Word count and WPM aren’t affected. If you need an accurate sentence count, use a video with creator-uploaded captions, or add punctuation first.
Practical uses
- Writers: see how long an article or script would be before repurposing a video.
- Creators: compare your speaking pace across videos, or against a script you plan to record.
- Students and teachers: estimate how long a lecture would take to read instead of watch.
- Translators and captioners: scope a job by word count before quoting a price.