Scroll speed is the setting that decides whether a prompter helps you or fights you, and it is the one most people never deliberately set. Too fast and you race to keep up, dropping the pauses that make delivery sound considered. Too slow and you start improvising filler while you wait for the next line.
The good news is that finding your number takes one rehearsal pass, and once you know it, it barely changes.
Why a px/s number is not worth copying
A prompter scrolls in pixels per second, because that is what a screen can measure. You care about words per minute, because that is how speech works. Converting between them depends on how many words fit on a line — and that changes with screen width and font size, not just one of them.
The gap is much larger than most people assume. We measured our own prompter at its default 48 px type: a phone in portrait fits about two words per line, a laptop about five. The same 80 px/s is therefore a comfortable 133 words per minute on the phone and an unreadable 333 on the laptop. Any speed figure you find online is only true for the screen it was written on.
So set the pace in words per minute and let the tool work out the pixels. Teleprompter Online shows the pace it is actually delivering next to the speed slider, measured from the text as laid out on your screen.
Starting points by format, in words per minute
- Wedding speeches and toasts: 100–120 wpm. Nerves make everyone faster on the night than in rehearsal.
- Keynotes and formal presentations: 110–130 wpm. Authority comes from unhurried pacing.
- Interviews and self-tapes: 110–130 wpm, mostly paused.
- Podcasts and long-form monologue: 120–140 wpm.
- Video calls: 120–140 wpm. You want to sound like you are thinking, not reciting.
- YouTube talking head: 130–150 wpm.
- TikTok, Reels and Shorts: 160–180 wpm. Short-form energy is genuinely quicker.
Finding your number in one pass
Load a script you know well. Set the font size you will actually use, at the distance you will actually sit. Drag the speed slider until the pace readout shows the middle of the range for your format, then read the first paragraph aloud at your natural pace without trying to match the scroll.
If the reading line drifts above your voice, the pace is too fast — drop it by ten. If it drifts below, raise it by ten. Two or three corrections and you will be close. Write down the words-per-minute figure rather than the slider value: the pace is yours and it travels between devices, while the pixel number belongs to one screen.
Read one line ahead
Fluent prompter reading is not reading the word you are saying. It is taking in the next line while your voice delivers the current one, the same way a musician reads slightly ahead of the note they are playing.
It takes a few sessions to become automatic, and it changes what speed feels comfortable — most people can go slightly faster once they read ahead, and sound more natural doing it, because they are delivering absorbed phrases rather than decoding words in real time.
When to stop setting speed at all
Any fixed speed is a compromise, because real delivery is not uniform. You slow for emphasis, pause for effect, and speed up through material you know cold. A timed scroll cannot follow that, so you spend attention managing it.
Voice-following scroll removes the problem: the script advances as you speak and waits when you stop. For long or improvisation-heavy reads it is straightforwardly better than any number you could pick. For short, tightly-timed pieces a fixed speed is still often easier, because it keeps you honest about pace.