How many words are on a page?
A printed page of a book holds about 300 words. We counted the words in 1,989 books whose full text ReadingRate holds and set each against the page counts of its print editions: half of the books hold between 250 and 347 words a page, one in ten fewer than 203 and one in ten more than 402. So a 300-page book runs from about 64,000 to 111,000 words, which at an average 250 words a minute is 4.3 to 7.4 hours.
A ReadingRate study · 1,989 books · 20,167 print editions · measured 10 November 2026
A field of 1,989 stars, one per book, with page count across and word count up, both on log scales. Most stars lie between the lines for 200 and 400 words a page, around 300 words a page. At 300 pages, the books run from about 64,000 to 111,000 words.
What we found
About 300 words a page.
That is the median across 1,989 books. The middle half run 250 to 347; one book in ten holds fewer than 203 words a page, and one in ten more than 402. 75% of books hold more than the 250 words a page often used as a rule of thumb.
Pages tell you how long a book is, roughly.
Page count explains 81% of the difference in length between books. Within that, the spread is wide: the 253 books whose print editions run 280 to 320 pages hold from 64,000 to 111,000 words (the middle 80%), so “a 300-page book” takes 4.3 to 7.4 hours at 250 words a minute, 5.8 for the typical one.
The same pages, a different book.
Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice both run 448 pages at the median of their print editions. Jane Eyre holds 185,316 words, Pride and Prejudice 127,015: half as long again in the same thickness. Of Mice and Men runs 81 pages and A Christmas Carol 112, and they hold about the same: 29,859 and 28,527 words.
The same book, different pages.
Across the 778 books with eight or more print editions, the longer editions in the middle half of a book’s range run 24% more pages than the shorter ones, for the same text. Half of the 33 print editions of Lord of the Flies run between 208 and 320 pages; half of the 22 of Brave New World, between 152 and 246. Type size, margins and an introduction move a page count; the words do not change.
How many pages will my book be?
If you are writing one, divide your word count by 300 for a typical printed page. The range below runs from the denser pages of the books we measured (347 words) to the looser ones (250): half of all books fall inside it.
| Words | Pages, typical | Pages, half of books |
|---|---|---|
| 50,000 | 170 | 140–200 |
| 70,000 | 230 | 200–280 |
| 80,000 | 270 | 230–320 |
| 90,000 | 300 | 260–360 |
| 100,000 | 330 | 290–400 |
| 120,000 | 400 | 350–480 |
These are pages of a printed book. A manuscript page, double-spaced, holds far fewer words.
How we measured
Words: counted in the full text of every book whose text ReadingRate stores, 2,890 books with 10,000 words or more. Only the 2,618 texts that our identity check confirmed as the right book are counted; the others hold a different book, a translation or part of one.
Pages: the page counts of each book’s print editions, 20,167 of them, most from Open Library. Audiobooks and ebooks are left out, and so is any edition under 40 or over 3,000 pages. A book’s page count is the median of its editions, so a single abridgement or omnibus does not move it. 2,041 confirmed books have at least one print edition.
Words a page: a book’s words over its median page count. 52 books came out under 100 or over 800 words a page, where the editions are almost certainly a different text from the one we counted (a selection, a collected works), and are left out. That leaves 1,989.
Hours: words at a flat 250 words a minute, the usual figure for an adult reading prose silently, with no adjustment for difficulty. Every number here is counted, none estimated: the only model in the study is the identity check, which reads a text and says which book it is.
The books named on this page were checked by hand: the stored text is the book, and its count is within 5% of the count usually published for it. Of 34 well-known books checked that way, 24 were within 5% and the median difference was 1%; the rest ran over, most likely by an introduction or notes kept in the text, and none of them is named here.
What this cannot tell you
A page count measures one printing. Large print, a children’s edition or a scholarly one with notes can double it; the median across editions softens that, and the study says nothing about any one edition you hold.
The books are the ones whose text ReadingRate holds, which leans toward older books and classics in the public domain. Recent commercial fiction may set its pages differently.
The hours are words at an average pace, not readers timed. Your own pace, and how hard the book is, change them; the reading speed test measures the first.
Questions
How many words are on a page of a book?
About 300, as the median of 1,989 books measured against their print editions. Half of books hold 250 to 347 words a page.
How long does it take to read a 300-page book?
4.3 to 7.4 hours at an average 250 words a minute, about 5.8 for a typical one. Books of 280 to 320 pages hold 64,000 to 111,000 words.
How many words is a 300-page book?
About 87,000 for a typical one. The 253 books whose print editions run 280 to 320 pages hold from 64,000 to 111,000 words (the middle 80%).
How many pages is 50,000 words?
About 170 printed pages at the median of 300 words a page, and between 140 and 200 for half of books.
How many pages is an 80,000-word novel?
About 270 printed pages at the median of 300 words a page, and between 230 and 320 for half of books.
How many pages is 100,000 words?
About 330 printed pages at the median of 300 words a page, and between 290 and 400 for half of books.
The data
Every book in this study, with its words, its print editions, its median page count and its words a page. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Download the data (CSV)
What each column means, how it was measured and its known issues
ReadingRate, “How many words are on a page?”, measured 10 November 2026, readingrate.com/studies/words-per-page. Data under CC BY 4.0.
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