Assignments and submission guidelines often mix units. A professor asks for “five pages,” a journal wants “under 4,000 words,” and a grant form allows “two pages maximum.” To move between those, you need to know how many words per page to expect, and why that number shifts.
The short answer: on a standard US Letter page with 1-inch margins and a 12-point font, expect about 500 words single-spaced and about 250 words double-spaced. The rest of this guide explains where that figure comes from and when it doesn’t hold.
How many words per page: a quick reference
These estimates assume US Letter paper, 1-inch margins, ordinary prose with paragraph breaks, and no headings or images. Words per page in Times New Roman are the most common benchmark, because it’s the default font for many essays and submissions.
| Font and size | Single-spaced | 1.5 spacing | Double-spaced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Times New Roman, 12 pt | ~530 | ~360 | ~265 |
| Arial, 12 pt | ~480 | ~320 | ~240 |
| Calibri, 11 pt | ~590 | ~395 | ~295 |
| Courier New, 12 pt | ~405 | ~270 | ~200 |
Treat every figure as a range of about ±10%. Two documents with the same settings can differ noticeably depending on the writing itself.
What changes the count
Font and size
Fonts differ in how wide their letters are. Times New Roman is narrow, so more of it fits on a line. Arial and Verdana are wider. Courier New gives every character the same width, which is why screenplays and manuscript formats use it: page counts become predictable.
Size matters more than most people expect. Moving from 12 to 11 points makes each character about 8% narrower and each line about 8% shorter, so a page holds roughly 18% more words.
Line spacing
Spacing only affects how many lines fit, not how many words fit on each line. Double spacing halves the lines, so words per page double spaced come to roughly half the words per page single spaced. 1.5 spacing lands about two-thirds of the way between.
Margins
Going from 1-inch to 1.25-inch margins on all sides removes about 12% of the usable area. Narrow 0.5-inch margins add about 30%. Check your guidelines before adjusting margins to hit a page count; reviewers notice.
The writing itself
Short paragraphs leave more half-empty lines. Dialogue, lists, headings, and block quotes all eat space. Technical writing with long words fits fewer words per line than conversational writing. This is why no calculator, including ours, can be exact.
Common conversions
At 12-point Times New Roman with 1-inch margins:
- 1,000 words is about 2 pages single-spaced, or 4 pages double-spaced.
- 1,500 words is about 3 pages single-spaced, or 6 pages double-spaced.
- 2,500 words is about 5 pages single-spaced, or 10 pages double-spaced.
- A 10-page double-spaced paper needs roughly 2,500–2,800 words.
Two questions come up constantly. How many pages is 1000 words? About 2 pages single-spaced, or 4 double-spaced. And how many words is 5 pages? About 2,650 single-spaced, or 1,325 double-spaced.
How to estimate your own document
The most reliable method is to measure a sample:
- Paste a full page of your actual draft into the word counter and note the word count.
- Divide your target word count by that number to get your page estimate.
If you don’t have a draft yet, use the Words Per Page calculator. Choose your font, size, spacing, and margins, and it converts in either direction, from words to pages or pages to words.
When page counts and word counts disagree
If a brief gives both a page limit and a word limit, the word limit is usually the one that’s enforced, because it can’t be gamed with formatting. When only pages are specified, stick to the formatting rules you were given (typically 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1-inch margins) and let the page count fall where it does.
And if you’re short of the target, resist the urge to pad. Tightening an argument and adding one more well-chosen example almost always beats stretching every sentence.