Teleprompter numbers: speed, time, glass and eye contact
The figures behind every ScrollCue guide in one place: how fast people read on camera, how long a script runs, what size glass you need and how close the text must sit to the lens.
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- Words per minute
- Glass sizes
- Gaze angles
Quick answer
Most people read at 130 to 160 words per minute on camera, so a 2-minute video is about 280 words and a 10-minute talk about 1,400. Keep the text about 2 cm under the lens for a gaze angleGaze angle. The angle between where you look and the camera lens. Under about 2° viewers read it as eye contact; reading 2 cm below the lens from 65 cm away gives about 1.8°. under 2°, and use glass about 24 × 23 cm for a 10.9-inch iPad.
- Speaking speed
- 130–160 WPM
- 2-minute video
- About 280 words
- Text under lens
- About 2 cm
- iPad glass
- About 24 × 23 cm
How fast do people read on camera?
Most people speak at about 130 to 160 words per minute on camera. Sermons run slower; short vertical videos run faster.
| Context | Words per minute | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Sermons and slow, formal reading | 110–130 | A 30-minute sermon is about 3,300–3,900 words |
| Conversational video and calls | 130–160 (about 140) | A 2-minute video is about 280 words; a 10-minute talk about 1,400 |
| Shorts, Reels and TikTok | About 170–175 | A 30-second vertical video is about 85 words |
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How long will my script take?
Reading time for common script lengths at a slow, conversational and fast pace.
| Script length | 110 WPM (slow, sermon) | 140 WPM (conversational) | 175 WPM (fast, short video) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 words | 0:55 | 0:43 | 0:34 |
| 150 words | 1:22 | 1:04 | 0:51 |
| 250 words | 2:16 | 1:47 | 1:26 |
| 500 words | 4:33 | 3:34 | 2:51 |
| 750 words | 6:49 | 5:21 | 4:17 |
| 1,000 words | 9:05 | 7:09 | 5:43 |
| 1,500 words | 13:38 | 10:43 | 8:34 |
| 2,000 words | 18:11 | 14:17 | 11:26 |
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1.8°
Read 2 cm under the lens and your eyes barely move.
Viewers judge eye contact by the angle between your gaze and the camera. That angle is the arctangent of how far your text sits below the lens, divided by how far you sit from the screen. Keep the script just under the camera and the angle drops below 2°, small enough that people see you looking at them.
| Text below lens | 50 cm | 65 cm | 80 cm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cm | 1.1° | 0.9° | 0.7° |
| 2 cm · cue lineCue line. A fixed marker near the top of the prompter that shows which line to read. Keeping it close to the lens keeps your eyes close to the camera. | 2.3° | 1.8° | 1.4° |
| 4 cm | 4.6° | 3.5° | 2.9° |
| 8 cm | 9.1° | 7.0° | 5.7° |
| 15 cm · middle | 16.7° | 13.0° | 10.6° |
See the angle change
Move the script further below the lens and watch the line of sight drop. Under about 2°, viewers read it as eye contact.
What the research says
The 2° figure is not a guess. Studies of perceived eye contact on camera point the same way.
Where eye contact peaks
1.76°
In a 2024 study, 17 viewers judged photos of a person looking at points from 7° above to 7° below a camera, viewed from about 60 cm. Eye contact was strongest when the person looked about 1.76° below the lens.1 ScrollCue's cue line, 2 cm under the lens at 65 cm, is 1.8°.
Where it breaks
5.5°
Earlier studies, summarised in the same paper, put the point where viewers stop seeing eye contact at about 4.5° above and 5.5° below the camera.1 People are far less sensitive to a gaze just below their eyes than to one above or to the side,3 which is why the script belongs under the camera.
What more costs
10°
In a 2022 study of 33 people on video calls, a 10° offset between the camera and the speaker's gaze already caused a statistically significant drop in how effective the call felt.2 Some guides work to a 15° rule; the research suggests that is too loose.
Keep the lens gapLens gap. The distance between the camera lens and the line of script you are reading. The smaller the lens gap compared with how far you sit from the camera, the smaller your gaze angle and the more it looks like eye contact. under one thirtieth of your distance (the 1-in-30 rule) and you stay under 2°, right where eye contact peaks.
- Gao, A., Jayakumar, S., Maniglia, M., Curless, B., Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, I., Seitz, A. R. and Seitz, S. M. (2024). Don't Look at the Camera: Achieving Perceived Eye Contact. arXiv:2404.17104.
- Holub, J., Isabelle, S., Krylová, A. and Avetisyan, H. (2022). Subjective Influence of Camera-Gaze Angular Offset. IEEE Access.
- Chen, M. (2002). Leveraging the Asymmetric Sensitivity of Eye Contact for Videoconferencing. Proceedings of CHI 2002.
What size glass do I need?
Glass held at 45° must be about √2 times as deep as the screen. These are the minimum sizes for common devices.
| Screen under the glass | Screen area (landscape) | Minimum glass at 45° |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1-inch phone | 14.1 × 6.5 cm | 15 × 10 cm |
| 8.3-inch iPad mini | 17.6 × 11.6 cm | 19 × 17 cm |
| 10.9-inch iPad | 22.7 × 15.8 cm | 24 × 23 cm |
| 12.9-inch iPad Pro | 26.2 × 19.7 cm | 27 × 29 cm |
| 13.3-inch laptop (16:10) | 28.6 × 17.9 cm | 30 × 26 cm |
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Which lenses work behind the glass?
Wide lenses can see the hood and the edges of the glass. From about 28 mm on a full-frame camera, the frame is usually clean.
| Focal length (full frame) | Approx. field of view | Hood in frame? |
|---|---|---|
| 16–20 mm | 107°–94° | Likely; corners show |
| 24 mm | 84° | Possible; mount flush |
| 28–35 mm | 75°–63° | Usually clean |
| 50 mm and longer | 47° and narrower | Clean |
Key figures at a glance
The settings and limits the ScrollCue guides rely on, with a link to the guide that explains each one.
| Measure | Value | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Text under the lens for eye contact | About 2 cm, giving a 1.8° gaze angle at 65 cm | Setup |
| Gaze angle viewers read as eye contact | Under about 2° | Gaze table |
| Words per line from a pulpit | 5–8 | Church |
| Camera distance at a desk | About an arm's length, lens at eye level | Home desk |
| Teleprompter glass angle | 45° above the screen | DIY glass |
| 70/30 beam-splitter glass | About 70% of light to the lens; costs about half a stop of exposure | Hardware |
| MacBook prompter window | A small floating window, top centre, right under the notch | MacBook |
| ScrollCue scroll speed range | 10–240 pixels per second | App |
| Cue line position | Anywhere from 15% to 75% of the screen height | App |
| Phone remote connection | Same Wi-Fi network, no internet needed | iPhone |
Cite as: ScrollCue, “Teleprompter numbers”, , scrollcue.com/teleprompter-numbers. Free to reuse with credit (CC BY 4.0).
7 questions
Questions, answered
Short answers to what people ask before they press play.
01What angle counts as eye contact on camera?02How many words per minute should a teleprompter scroll?03How many words is a 2-minute video?04How many words is a 10-minute presentation?05What size glass do I need for an iPad teleprompter?06How close to the camera should teleprompter text be?Read all answers · 1 more answerShow less
What angle counts as eye contact on camera? #
Research puts the sweet spot at about 2° below the lens: a 2024 study found perceived eye contact peaked at 1.76° below the camera. Earlier studies found eye contact is lost beyond about 5.5° below or 4.5° above, and a 2022 study found a 10° offset already makes calls feel less effective.
How many words per minute should a teleprompter scroll? #
Match your speaking pace: usually 130 to 160 words per minute for video and calls, 110 to 130 for sermons, and about 170 for short vertical videos.
How many words is a 2-minute video? #
About 280 words at a conversational 140 words per minute.
How many words is a 10-minute presentation? #
About 1,400 words at 140 words per minute, 1,100 at a slow pace and 1,750 at a fast pace.
What size glass do I need for an iPad teleprompter? #
About 24 × 23 cm for a 10.9-inch iPad and 27 × 29 cm for a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, with the glass at 45°.
How close to the camera should teleprompter text be? #
As close as possible. Text 2 cm below the lens gives a gaze angle of about 1.8° at 65 cm, which viewers read as eye contact.
Can I reuse these numbers? #
Yes. The tables on this page are free to reuse with credit to ScrollCue under CC BY 4.0.