arunbrahma

<p>Drops a small “X min read” line above each post on your site. Same little badge Medium uses and most blogs use.</p>
<p>The plugin counts the words, divides by reading speed, prepends the badge above the content. That is the whole thing. No tracking, no upsells, no third-party scripts.</p>
<p>What you can change from Settings, Optic Read-O-Meter:</p>
<ul>
<li>Words per minute (default 200, the global newspaper average).</li>
<li>Style: pill, minimal, dark, outline, or none.</li>
<li>Icon: clock, coffee, book, or none.</li>
<li>Colors via the WordPress color picker, plus seven one-click palettes (Emerald, Sky, Rose, Amber, Violet, Slate, Dark).</li>
<li>Position above, below, or both.</li>
<li>Separate singular and plural templates, one for “1 minute read” and one for “5 minutes read”.</li>
<li>Optional image time. Each image adds 12 seconds by default, the same convention Medium uses.</li>
<li>Minimum word count to skip the badge on short posts.</li>
<li>Which post types get the auto-prepended badge.</li>
</ul>
<p>Per post, an editor sidebar lets you hide the badge for a specific post or set a manual minute count.</p>
<p>A Reading Time Gutenberg block ships with the plugin. Drop it anywhere in the block editor and pick “Styled badge” or “Plain text” from the sidebar. There is also a shortcode for non-block contexts: <code>[optrom_reading_time]</code>, <code>[optrom_reading_time format="badge"]</code>, or <code>[optrom_reading_time template="About %s"]</code>.</p>
<p>Performance: word and image counts are cached in post meta on save. After that, rendering reads one integer. No external HTTP, no analytics.</p>
<p>For developers, two filters: <code>optrom_words_per_minute</code> to override the WPM per post, and <code>optrom_label</code> to replace the entire label string.</p>
<p>The plugin cleans up after itself. Option and post meta are deleted on uninstall.</p>


Optic Read-O-Meter

Drops an "X min read" line above your posts. Five styles, color palettes, image-aware time, plural wording, shortcode and block.

Robert Coster

<p>Signalfire Reading Estimator automatically calculates and displays the estimated reading time for your posts and pages. This helps visitors gauge how long content will take to read before they begin.</p>
<h4>Key Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Automatic reading time calculation based on configurable words per minute</li>
<li>Flexible display options (top or bottom of content)</li>
<li>Support for multiple post types</li>
<li>Customizable display text with placeholder support</li>
<li>Shortcode support for manual placement</li>
<li>Clean, responsive styling</li>
<li>Translation ready</li>
</ul>
<h4>Customization Options</h4>
<ul>
<li>Set custom reading speed (words per minute)</li>
<li>Choose which post types to display reading time on</li>
<li>Position reading time at top or bottom of content</li>
<li>Customize the display text format</li>
<li>Enable/disable automatic display</li>
</ul>
<h4>Shortcode Usage</h4>
<p>Use <code>[sigukrest_reading_time]</code> to display reading time for the current post, or <code>[sigukrest_reading_time post_id="123"]</code> for a specific post.</p>


Signalfire Reading Estimator

Calculates and displays estimated reading time for posts with configurable speed and flexible display options.

Optic Read-O-Meter vs Signalfire Reading Estimator