How Fast Do Great Speakers Talk?
We measured pace and pauses in 25 famous speeches, from Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 to Joe Biden in 2021.
Quick Answer
Across 25 public-domain recordings of US presidential speeches from 1912 to 2021 (455 minutes, 50,939 words), the median speaking pace was 130words per minute, counting only the time the speaker was actually talking. 18 of the 25 fell between 120 and 160 words per minute. The gravest moments were the slowest: Franklin D. Roosevelt's “Day of Infamy” address ran at 90 words per minute and John F. Kennedy's inaugural at 108. Speakers paused about every 4 seconds, roughly 15 pauses of half a second or more per speaking minute with about 8 words between them, and pace within a single speech typically swung by 43 words per minute between its slowest and fastest passages.
Five findings
130 wpm
Median speaking pace
18 of 25 speeches fell between 120 and 160 words per minute while the speaker was talking. Applause and silences pull the whole-recording figure lower: JFK's inaugural is 108 while speaking but 98 across the full 14 minutes.
90 wpm
The biggest moments were the slowest
FDR's "Day of Infamy" (90), LBJ's first address to Congress after Kennedy's assassination (94) and JFK's inaugural (108) were three of the five slowest speeches in the set.
~4 s
A pause every four seconds
A median of 15 pauses of 0.5 s or more per speaking minute, about 8 words between pauses, and a typical pause of 0.9 s. JFK's inaugural paused most: about 20 times a minute, 5 words apart.
43 wpm
Pace is not steady
Within a speech, the fastest 30-second stretches typically ran 43 wpm faster than the slowest. Bush's address on 11 September 2001 swung by 91.
134 vs 126
Desk addresses ran faster than crowd speeches
Addresses to a camera or microphone from a desk (median 134 wpm, 7 speeches) ran faster than speeches to a live chamber or crowd (median 126, 14 speeches). A small sample, but consistent with speakers slowing down for a room.
All 25 speeches
Sorted slowest to fastest. Speaking pace excludes applause and breaks of 2 seconds or more. Pace range is the 10th to 90th percentile of 30-second stretches. * Pause figures are lower confidence for this recording (narrow gap between speech and background noise).
| Speech | Year | Speaking wpm | Pace range | Pauses / min | Words between pauses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franklin D. Roosevelt"Day of Infamy" address to Congress | 1941 | 90 | 74–110 | 13.3* | 6.7* |
| Lyndon B. JohnsonAddress to Joint Session of Congress | 1963 | 94 | 66–112 | 15.2 | 6.2 |
| Franklin D. RooseveltFirst Inaugural ("fear itself" excerpt) | 1933 | 102 | – | 14.4 | 6.5 |
| Warren G. HardingSpeech excerpt | 1920s | 104 | 87–116 | 15.3* | 6.6* |
| John F. KennedyInaugural Address | 1961 | 108 | 97–117 | 19.9 | 5.4 |
| Dwight D. EisenhowerFirst Inaugural Address | 1953 | 122 | 98–142 | 18.9 | 6.4 |
| Calvin CoolidgeTaxes, Liberty, and the Philosophy of Government | 1920s | 124 | 114–135 | 14.4* | 8.4* |
| Richard NixonResignation Address | 1974 | 124 | 99–151 | 14.8 | 8.4 |
| Ronald ReaganBrandenburg Gate ("Tear down this wall") | 1987 | 125 | 107–140 | 14.1* | 8.8* |
| George W. BushFirst Inaugural Address | 2001 | 125 | 100–145 | 19 | 6.6 |
| Dwight D. EisenhowerFarewell Address | 1961 | 126 | 108–147 | 18.3 | 6.8 |
| Joe BidenInaugural Address | 2021 | 126 | 104–142 | 18.9 | 6.7 |
| Barack ObamaFarewell Address | 2017 | 130 | 105–154 | 10.4* | 12.5* |
| Joe BidenRemarks on Afghanistan | 2021 | 131 | 108–147 | 15.3 | 8.5 |
| Ronald ReaganFirst Inaugural Address | 1981 | 133 | 114–153 | 16.7* | 8* |
| John F. KennedyRice University ("We choose to go to the Moon") | 1962 | 134 | 111–153 | 19.9* | 6.7* |
| George W. BushAddress to the Nation, 11 September | 2001 | 134 | 77–168 | 16.6 | 8 |
| Barack ObamaState of the Union | 2010 | 139 | 114–165 | 13.4 | 10.4 |
| Barack Obama50th Anniversary of the Selma Marches | 2015 | 143 | 118–163 | 9.7 | 14.7 |
| Barack ObamaFirst Inaugural Address | 2009 | 144 | 124–165 | 11.9 | 12 |
| Franklin D. RooseveltFireside Chat 1: On the Banking Crisis | 1933 | 150 | 128–167 | 13.6 | 11 |
| Harry S. TrumanFarewell Address | 1953 | 154 | 134–178 | 19.2 | 8 |
| Bill ClintonAddress to the Nation on Haiti | 1994 | 158 | 130–178 | 15.3 | 10.2 |
| Theodore RooseveltSocial and Industrial Justice | 1912 | 163 | 137–194 | 10.2* | 15.6* |
| Theodore RooseveltThe Right of the People to Rule | 1912 | 175 | 145–201 | 8.7* | 19.5* |
What this means for your next presentation
- Plan on about 130 words a minute. A 5-minute slot holds roughly 650 words, a 10-minute talk about 1,300. If your script is longer, cut it rather than speed up.
- Slow down for the line that matters. The speeches people still quote were the slowest in the set. Give your key sentence the same treatment.
- Pause every sentence or two. Great speakers paused about every 4 seconds, for just under a second. Most nervous presenters do the opposite and fill every gap.
- Vary the pace on purpose. A 40 wpm swing between your slowest and fastest passages is normal, not a flaw. A flat pace is what makes a talk sound read.
- Expect to speak more slowly to a room than to a camera. Speakers in our set did.
Method
Recordings.25 recordings of US presidential speeches hosted on Wikimedia Commons and marked public domain as works of the US federal government. Each is linked from the table. We left out recordings with other licences. FDR's first-inaugural item and the Harding recording are excerpts rather than full speeches.
Transcription.Each recording was converted to 16 kHz mono and transcribed with OpenAI's whisper-1 model with word-level timestamps, the same settings EchoPitch uses to analyse practice sessions. Whisper counted 1,367 words in JFK's inaugural; the official text has about 1,366.
Pace. Speaking pace is words divided by speaking time, where speaking time excludes silences and applause of 2 seconds or more between words, and any lead-in or trailing audio. Overall pace, in the CSV, divides by the full recording length.
Pauses.Word timestamps undercount pauses (for JFK's inaugural they showed 110, against about 250 silences in the audio), so pauses are detected from the audio itself: 20 ms frames quieter than a threshold set for each recording, 35% of the way from its noise floor to its speech level. A pause is a quiet stretch of 0.5 to 2 seconds inside the speech. Nine recordings with a narrow gap between speech and background noise are flagged; excluding them leaves the medians unchanged (15.3 pauses a minute, 8 words between pauses).
Limitations.25 speeches by one kind of speaker is a small, historically skewed sample, so treat the group comparisons as indicative. Most speeches were read from a text or teleprompter, so they say little about filler words, which Whisper also tends to tidy away; we do not report them. Theodore Roosevelt's two 1912 items are studio recordings of campaign speeches, not live delivery, which may explain why they are the fastest in the set.
Citing this study. EchoPitch (2026). How Fast Do Great Speakers Talk? Speaking Pace in 25 Famous Speeches. https://echopitch.io/research/speaking-pace-famous-speeches. Data licensed CC BY 4.0.
Frequently asked questions
How many words per minute do great speakers talk?
In our measurement of 25 US presidential speeches recorded between 1912 and 2021, the median speaking pace was 130 words per minute, counting only the time the speaker was actually talking. 18 of the 25 fell between 120 and 160 words per minute. The slowest was Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 "Day of Infamy" address at 90 words per minute; the fastest was Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 recording of "The Right of the People to Rule" at 175.
How fast should I speak in a presentation?
Aim for roughly 120 to 150 words per minute, which is where most of the speeches we measured sit, and slow down for the sentence you most want remembered. The most quoted openings in our set were delivered slowest: JFK's 1961 inaugural ran at 108 words per minute and FDR's "Day of Infamy" address at 90. A 10-minute talk at 130 words per minute is about 1,300 words.
How often should you pause when speaking?
The speakers we measured paused about every 4 seconds of speech: a median of 15 pauses of half a second or longer per speaking minute, with about 8 words between pauses and a typical pause of just under a second. JFK's inaugural was the most pause-heavy, at about 20 pauses a minute and 5 words between them.
Do good speakers keep a steady pace?
No. Within a single speech, pace typically swung by about 43 words per minute between the slowest and fastest passages (the 10th and 90th percentile of 30-second stretches). George W. Bush's 11 September 2001 address had the widest swing, about 91 words per minute.
How fast do you talk?
Rehearse your talk on camera and EchoPitch reports your words per minute and pauses, using the same transcription as this study, so you can compare yourself with the speeches above.
Measure my pace