Reading Time
Tell readers how long a post takes so they start reading.
Show an estimated reading time — like 4 min read — under the title, above or below your posts and in post lists. Counts words and images, handles Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and is styled live in the Customizer.
Extension
Requirements
- WordPress 6.5 or newer
- PHP 7.4 or newer
- Licence: Pro ($2 / year) — add it to the cart in Moduly
- Switch it on in Moduly → Installed Widgets.
- Click Manage on it — this opens Appearance → Customize with the Reading Time settings, next to a live preview.
- Change the settings; the preview updates as you go.
- Click Publish to make it live.
Settings
General
| Setting | What you can set |
|---|
| Show the reading time | — |
| Text | {minutes} is replaced with the number. |
| Icon | Clock, Book or None |
How it is counted
| Setting | What you can set |
|---|
| Reading speed | 100–400 · Adults read about 200–250 words a minute on screen. |
| Add time for images | 12 seconds for the first image, one second less for each one after, down to 3. |
Where
| Setting | What you can set |
|---|
| Show on | Posts, Posts and pages or Chosen posts or pages (IDs) |
| IDs | Text |
| Placement | Under the title (block themes), Above the content or Below the content · Classic themes have no title hook, so "under the title" falls back to above the content there. |
| Also in post lists | Blog, archives, search results and "more posts" lists: under each title (block themes) or above each excerpt. |
Text and icon
| Setting | What you can set |
|---|
| Colour | Empty: the text colour around it. |
| Size | 70–130 |
| Weight | Regular or Bold |
| On a pill | — |
| Pill colour | Colour |
Tips
- Switch it off in Installed Widgets at any time; your settings are kept for next time.
Troubleshooting
- Classic themes can't place it under the title (no safe hook, because the_title also runs for menus and widgets). They get it above the content.
- Page-builder content (Elementor, Divi) stored outside post_content isn't counted. The estimate then falls back to whatever text is in post_content.
- A change not showing on the live site is almost always a page cache — clear your caching plugin or host cache.
