A 10-minute YouTube video script runs about 1,250–1,500 words, based on the typical speaking pace of 125–150 words per minute. Fast, energetic delivery pushes that toward 1,600 words; slower tutorial-style narration lands nearer 1,200. If you write in screenplay format instead, use the film standard: one page equals roughly one minute of screen time.
Start with your own speaking pace, not a generic number: read a paragraph of your draft aloud for exactly 60 seconds, count the words, and multiply by 10. Most YouTubers measure between 120 and 160 words per minute, which is why community answers on r/NewTubers cluster around 1,200–1,600 words for a 10-minute video.
Word-count targets by pace
Delivery pace | Words per minute | 10-minute script |
|---|---|---|
Slow / tutorial narration | ~120 wpm | ~1,200 words |
Average conversational | 125–150 wpm | 1,250–1,500 words |
Fast / high-energy | ~160 wpm | ~1,600 words |
Subtract for non-speech time. Raw word count assumes you talk wall-to-wall. If your video includes B-roll passages, on-screen demonstrations, montages, or deliberate pauses, cut the target by 10–15% — a 10-minute video with heavy visuals often needs only 1,100–1,300 spoken words, because the footage carries the remaining clock time.
If you script in screenplay format, count pages instead of words. Standard screenplay formatting converts at one page per minute of screen time, so a 10-minute script is roughly 10 pages. This conversion holds because screenplay pages include action lines and scene descriptions that occupy screen time without adding spoken words — which is exactly why a dialogue-only word count and a page count can both be correct for the same video. The page-per-minute standard also matters if you generate the video with AI: the invideo agent reads script length to infer duration, so handing it five pages of a screenplay-format script is effectively asking for five minutes of video — you control runtime through how much script you write, not a separate duration setting.
Practical workflow: draft to your calculated target, record a full read-through, and time it. If the read runs long, cut whole sentences rather than compressing phrasing — pacing survives cuts better than cramming. If it runs short, expand examples rather than padding transitions.
Generally films are written in a way that each page of script is about equivalent to 1 minute of screen time. So, by asking to generate the first five pages, I'm effectively asking to generate the first five minutes of the film. I don't decide the duration independently.
— a filmmaker documenting an AI film production workflow