How Many Words in a 30-Second Ad? Script Pacing Guide

Nearly every first draft script that lands in our production queue is too long. Not wildly too long, which would be easy to catch, but modestly over, which is worse, because it survives the brief, survives the table read in the writer's head, and only fails on camera. The question of how many words in a 30 second ad usually gets asked after the shoot, when the edit comes back at 38 seconds, instead of before the brief goes out, when the fix costs nothing.

An overweight script leaves you two options on the day, and both are bad. The creator speeds up, and the read flattens: pauses disappear, the hook loses its beat, and the whole ad starts to sound like the terms and conditions at the end of a radio spot. Or the editor cuts around it afterwards, and you get jump-cut mush where sentences end on a different breath than they started. Counting words before anyone hits record is cheaper than either.

The maths starts from one number. Conversational English averages about 150 words per minute, the National Center for Voice and Speech figure quoted in VirtualSpeech's speaking-rate data, which works out at 2.5 words a second. Radio producers plan to the same figure, and the Killerspots radio script guide puts the realistic spread at about 2.2 words a second for a warm, slow read and close to 3 for an energetic one. Everything below is built from those three rates.

How many words is a 30-second script?

Here is the full lookup at all three speeds, across the six durations paid social actually uses. The first three columns are ceilings for speech that runs from the first frame to the last. The final column is what we put in the brief.

The ceilings assume nonstop speech, and no good ad has that. A product close-up, a reaction beat and an end card all eat runtime without a word of dialogue. So the brief column plans at the energetic rate with about 10% of the runtime held back for the close. Killerspots draws the same line for radio: push a 30-second spot past 80 words and the pauses disappear. Write to that column and the read comes back with room to breathe.

Dialogue needs one more subtraction. Two voices have to leave room for each other, and Killerspots puts a two-voice 30-second spot at 65 to 70 words against 75 for a single voice. On camera every handover also carries a glance and a turn, so treat that lower figure as a ceiling. Scripts for podcast-style ads and duo formats feel roomy on the page and come back long for exactly this reason.

Why voiceover and on-camera scripts run at different speeds

A VO artist works in a booth with a controlled breath, a pop shield and the option to punch in any line again. Nothing competes with the read, so it can sit at the energetic end of the range and stay clean. An on-camera creator is doing three jobs at once: delivering the line, managing their face and handling the product. A talking-head line can run at 3 words a second. A demo line, where the product is in their hands and doing something on screen, gets planned at 2.5, because pushing a creator to VO speed mid-demo is what produces that glassy, over-rehearsed delivery the comments section clocks instantly.

Planning feed ads at the energetic end, above the broadcast norm, is deliberate. Radio producers plan at 2.5 words a second, about 75 words for a 30-second spot. Those norms were built for broadcast, where the ad had the living room's attention and could afford air (we cover what still applies there in our field report on producing an AI TV commercial). A feed ad is in a swipe contest. The direct response reads that win on Meta and TikTok are compressed and front-loaded, so we treat 2.5 as the floor for a feed script and 3 as the target.

There is a ceiling, though. VirtualSpeech lists radio hosts and podcasters at 150 to 160 words per minute, and describes the same range for audiobooks as the upper limit people comfortably hear. That is roughly 2.5 to 2.7 words a second, so a 3-words-a-second ad is already running above it. Killerspots reckons a voice talent can compress a read by 10% to 15% before it starts to sound hurried, and that is all the slack there is. An ad is nothing but new information the viewer has never heard: a claim and the mechanism behind it. The viewer does not rewind. A claim they missed is a claim you never made.

A script that fits on the page and a script that fits in the mouth are two different documents.

Why rushed reads fail

Two things break when a creator sprints an overweight script, and the first is the hook. The opening seconds decide whether anyone watches the rest, and that is precisely where a nervous creator makes up time. A hook written as eight words gets delivered as a blur, the beat after it vanishes, and the ad loses the scroll-stop it was built around. The viewer's ear needs that half-second of landing room to decide the video is worth staying for.

The second casualty is comprehension. A viewer processing a sprinted claim about your product is doing more work than a feed asks of anyone. They do not slow the video down. They swipe. Platform guidance rewards the same restraint: TikTok for Business allows in-feed ads up to 60 seconds but says 21 to 34 seconds performs best. The winning durations are short, which means the word budgets are small, which means the discipline has to live in the script, not the read.

Longer formats still have a job. A 45 or 60-second script earns its runtime when the audience does not yet know they have the problem, and we map which lengths belong to which buyer in our script format guide by awareness stage. But a 60-second ad written at 200 words is a choice. A 30-second ad written at 95 words is a mistake, and it is one of the most common ones we correct.

Worked example: trimming a 95-word draft to a true 30-second read

Here is a first draft in the shape we see weekly. Skincare brand, on-camera creator, briefed as a 30-second ad. It reads fine on the page:

The draft (95 words): "I tried pretty much every vitamin C serum out there, and my dark spots always came back within a few weeks, which was really frustrating. Then my facialist told me the reason most serums do nothing is that the vitamin C oxidises before it ever gets into your skin. This one is stabilised, so it actually stays active the whole time. I started noticing a real difference after about three weeks, and now people keep commenting on my skin. If you are still struggling with dark spots, you seriously need to give this a try."

Run the maths before anyone shoots it. Even at an energetic 3 words a second, 95 words is 32 seconds of continuous speech, and at a natural 2.5 it is 38, before a single product close-up or end card. Shot as written, this is a 35-second ad, or a rushed 30. So we cut:

The 30-second cut (79 words): "I have tried every vitamin C serum out there, and my dark spots always came back within a few weeks. My facialist finally told me why: in most serums, the vitamin C oxidises before it ever gets into your skin. This one is stabilised, so it stays active from day one. I noticed a real difference after three weeks, and now people comment on my skin. If your dark spots keep coming back, this is the one to try."

At 3 words a second that is about 26 seconds of speech, leaving 4 seconds for the product beat and end card. A creator who naturally reads at 2.5 would take 32 seconds over it, so if your creator talks slowly, keep cutting to about 70 words. The cuts followed the same order they always do:

• Qualifiers went first. "Pretty much", "actually", "about", "seriously", "keep". Each one costs a third of a second and adds nothing the delivery does not already carry.
• Stated emotion went second. "Which was really frustrating" is four words describing a feeling the creator's face shows for free. On camera, emotion is footage, not copy.
• Throat-clearing got compressed. "The reason most serums do nothing is that" became "why:". Eight words of wind-up into one word and a pause, and the pause does more work.
• The structure survived untouched. Hook, mechanism, proof, CTA, in that order. Every element in our UGC ad script structure template is still there. Only the padding died.

One cutting rule we hold to: never claw back time from the pause before the CTA. That beat is where the viewer decides. Cut the middle of the script, not its ending.

Your word counter is lying about prices, offers and URLs

Every number above is spoken words, and the word count in your doc counts written ones. For plain sentences the two match. For the lines ad scripts lean on hardest (the price, the discount, the claim with a number in it, the URL at the end) they drift apart, and always in the same direction. Killerspots flags long brand names and phone numbers among the things that eat a read's time; in a feed ad it is mostly offers.

A script with a price, a discount code and a URL can read about 10 words longer than its count, which is 3 to 4 seconds at feed pace. The fix is to count those lines the way they are spoken, or better, take them out of the read. The URL and the code belong on screen as text, and the creator only needs to say "link below".

Reverse lookup: you have the words, here is the duration

Most scripts are written before a duration is chosen, so run the lookup in the other direction. Count your trimmed draft in spoken words, then read its real length off this table.

Then decide, honestly. If the trimmed script is 120 words, you are holding a 40 to 48 second ad: either cut it to a duration that performs, or commit to the longer format and structure it to earn the time. What you should not do is sprint it into 30. And the trap runs the other way too: 50 words stretched across 30 seconds pads as badly as 120 words crammed into it. Slow reads signal scripted; the feed punishes both directions.

The word budget belongs in the brief itself, next to aspect ratio and length, in the specs box of our UGC brief template. Leave it out and the creator sets the pace for you, and you find out what they chose in the edit. This pacing check is a standing step in how we run production: every script gets a word count against its briefed duration before it goes anywhere near a shoot, and the rest of our scriptwriting references live in the resources hub.

FAQ: ad script word counts

How many words fit in a 30-second ad script?

A 30-second ad script fits about 75 words at a natural 2.5 words a second, ranging from 66 words at a slow read to 90 at an energetic 3 words a second. For UGC feed ads, brief around 80 words so the read keeps its pauses and the last 3 seconds stay free for the product shot or end card.

How many words can you say in 30 seconds?

Most people say about 75 words in 30 seconds. Conversational English averages about 150 words per minute, or 2.5 words a second. A slow, warm read drops to about 66 words in 30 seconds, and an energetic commercial read rises to about 90.

How many words is a 60-second commercial script?

A 60-second commercial script holds about 150 words at a natural 2.5 words a second, or up to 180 at an energetic 3 words a second. Brief around 160 words so the script leaves room for product shots, an end card and at least one deliberate pause.

How long should a UGC ad script be?

TikTok says in-feed ads perform best at 21 to 34 seconds, so most UGC scripts should land between about 50 and 100 spoken words. Dialogue scripts need fewer: a two-voice 30-second spot fits about 65 to 70 words, against 75 for a single voice.

Researched and drafted with AI assistance, then edited and fact-checked by Chris Bristow.