PechaKucha 20×20 & Ignite Script Timer
Twenty slides, twenty seconds each, auto-advancing whether or not you are ready. Total time is fixed at 6:40 — the only variable is whether each slide has forty words or sixty. The grid below budgets every slide separately, because a correct total with out-of-sync slides is still a talk that misses its visuals.
PechaKucha 20×20 is 400 seconds: 20 slides × 20 seconds = 6 minutes
40 seconds, with 40 to 45 words per slide at 130 WPM. Split your script with a
---slide--- line and the grid marks any slide that runs over its budget in
red. Rehearse with the auto-advancing runner so each slide gets its own twenty seconds,
not just the talk as a whole.
Your script
Stage-direction tags — [pause 3s], [applause], [laugh],
[beat], [slide] — add real seconds and are never counted as spoken words.
Result
Type a word count or paste a script.
20 slides × 20s = 6:40 total · 43 words per slide at 130 WPM · separate slides with a ---slide--- line
The format family
Every variant shares the auto-advance constraint. Only the arithmetic changes. Word budgets below assume 130 WPM; switch the pace above and the grid recalculates.
| Format | Slides | Each | Total | Words per slide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PechaKucha 20×20 default | 20 | 20 s | 6:40 | 40–45 at 130 WPM |
| Ignite 20×15 | 20 | 15 s | 5:00 | 32–38 at 130 WPM |
| Short 10×20 | 10 | 20 s | 3:20 | 40–45 at 130 WPM |
| Extended 30×20 | 30 | 20 s | 10:00 | 40–45 at 130 WPM |
| Practice 5×20 | 5 | 20 s | 1:40 | 40–45 at 130 WPM |
How many words per slide — and why the guides disagree
Teaching material for first-time PechaKucha speakers recommends 40 to 50 words per slide. Timer tools aimed at experienced conference presenters say 50 to 60. Both are right about their own speakers: 20 seconds holds about 43 words at a deliberate 130 WPM and about 50 at a brisker 150. The number you should write to is the one that matches your actual stage pace, which for most people presenting in a second language, or in an unfamiliar room, is slower than their desk rehearsal.
The universal advice in every camp is the same: cut ten per cent after you hit the budget. Stage nerves accelerate some speakers and freeze others; the ones who freeze need the margin, and the ones who rush sound breathless without it. A 40-word slide with a second of silence before the advance looks composed. A 45-word slide that finishes as the image changes looks like it was read.
Use the grid. Split the draft with ---slide--- lines, load it, and read
the red cells before you build the deck. The most common pattern is slide one —
the introduction everyone over-writes — sitting at sixty words while the closing
slide sits at fifteen. Rebalance in the script, not on stage: the timer will not wait for
the closing thought you meant to add.
Rehearsing each slide to its own twenty seconds
Getting the total right is the easy part. A talk that sums to 6:40 but has slides running three seconds long every third change produces exactly the failure PechaKucha exists to prevent: the speaker trailing the visuals, the audience reading the next image while the speaker finishes the last sentence. The discipline is rehearsing each slide to its own twenty, not the talk as a whole.
Press the rehearsal runner above and let it advance with an audible cue. Speak each section as its cell highlights. When the cue lands before you finish the section, that slide is over budget — cut words, never ask the room to wait, because on stage the slide will have already changed. When you finish with five or more seconds of silence, the slide is under-written and can carry one more image or half a sentence.
Build the deck last. Select the twenty images before writing a word of script, the way the format’s founders intended: if a point cannot survive as an image with two or three spoken sentences, it is a blog post, not a PechaKucha slide. Then write to the budget, cut ten per cent, and rehearse against the runner until two consecutive full runs land inside 6:30.
Questions about PechaKucha timing
About 40 to 45 words at 130 WPM, or 50 to 60 if you speak at a brisker pace. Guides split on the number because they assume different delivery rates: teaching material recommends 40 to 50, timer tools aimed at experienced presenters say 50 to 60. The grid above budgets against whichever pace you select and marks any slide that runs over.
PechaKucha is 20 slides at 20 seconds each — 6 minutes 40 seconds total. Ignite is 20 slides at 15 seconds each — 5 minutes total. Both auto-advance; neither waits for you. The word budget scales down with the slide length: about 32 to 38 words per Ignite slide at 130 WPM.
Because slide one was over budget. PechaKucha timing errors compound: two extra seconds on slide one does not cost two seconds, it puts you permanently two seconds behind every visual change for the rest of the talk. The fix is not rushing slides two through twenty — it is cutting slide one until it lands inside twenty seconds with a full second of margin.
Put a line containing only ---slide--- between sections. Each section becomes a cell in the 20-slide grid with its own word count against the per-slide budget. Slides over budget turn red so you can see the overruns before you ever open the presentation software.
Yes. Press Start rehearsal run above: the grid advances one cell every 20 seconds with an audible cue, exactly like the auto-advance on stage. Rehearse the whole talk this way at least twice — speakers who only rehearse the total, not each slide against its own twenty seconds, end up with a correct 6:40 that never matches the visuals.
Specialized speech timers
Formats with hard rules and their own pacing math. Each tool opens with that format’s default limits already set.
Public Comment & City Council Timer
3:00 civic mic-cutoff simulator with the green → yellow → red warning lights.
Graduation & Commencement Speech Timer
Stadium-pace timing with an applause buffer for valedictorian and commencement addresses.
3MT Three Minute Thesis Timer
Strict 180-second hard stop at 125 WPM, with a syllable-density disqualification check.