How many words fit into a commercial? Check timing and pronunciation and brief your voice-over.

Having your script recorded by a voice-over sometimes takes more back-and-forth than you expected: does this fit into 30 seconds, how do you pronounce that name, which tone of voice do you want? ScriptChecker raises these points up front, so the voice-over does not have to ask.

You paste your text, see right away whether it fits, fill in the pronunciation of the tricky terms and send it all on as a tidy briefing. The voice-over knows in one go what needs to happen, and you get a correct recording sooner.

Fewer correction rounds, fewer delays, a tighter delivery to your client.

Words per minute works fine for a documentary or a long script. But when you only have 15 or 30 seconds, that rule of thumb is too rough. The difference between the Dutch words “kapper” (hairdresser) and “activiteitenbegeleider” (activity coordinator) is one word, but two syllables against nine. That one word can throw off your entire timing.

That is why ScriptChecker counts syllables, not words, and also takes pauses, punctuation and directions into account. That way the estimate matches what will actually happen in the studio, not a count on paper. And in the spirit of Willem’s point: the tool never pushes your voice-over to hurry. The pace meter shows exactly when your text is too long for the available time, so you can cut words instead of making the voice rush.

That pace of about two words per second is not a rough guess. We had the same test text recorded by a group of professional voice-overs, all at a natural “normal” pace, and measured how fast they were.

The spread turned out to be surprisingly small: the voices cluster closely around 280 syllables per minute. ScriptChecker uses exactly that value as its benchmark for “normal pace”: not theory on paper, but what a professional voice actually does in the studio.

The three things you want to nail down beforehand:

1. The required length. Does the text have to fit into 30.0 seconds? Say so, and the voice-over can adjust the pace to it.
2. The style you want. Warm and engaged, or tight and businesslike? One line of direction saves a lot of back-and-forth.
3. The pronunciation of doubtful cases. This is by far the biggest reason for a second recording.

ScriptChecker lists exactly these points and bundles them into one briefing.

A voice-over reads a commercial at a brisk but natural pace, somewhere around 150 words per minute, or roughly two to two and a half words per second. As fellow voice-over Willem van den Top writes in his blog about speaking rate (in Dutch), two words per second is a healthy starting point: faster is technically fine, but beyond a certain point it costs calm, beauty and persuasiveness.

Most re-records are not caused by timing, but by pronunciation. Do you read out a phone number digit by digit or in pairs? Is 2026 “twintig zesentwintig” or “tweeduizend zesentwintig”? Does the stress fall on the first or the second syllable of that brand name? Those are your choices, not the voice-over’s. ScriptChecker marks all those doubtful cases in your text (names, years, times, numbers, amounts, phone numbers, websites, email addresses and abbreviations) and asks you for each one how it should sound. You record the interpretation once, the tool puts it in the briefing, and your voice-over does not have to guess anything.

• Live timing. See right away the speaking pace needed to fit your text into the target length, with a pace meter from relaxed to fast.
• Points of attention in the text. The tool marks doubtful cases and asks for the pronunciation you want for each one.
• Smart syllable count. Years, clock times, currencies and long numbers are counted the way they are actually spoken.
• Ready-made briefing. Length, style advice and pronunciation points in one text, to copy or email in one click.

Click the ? at the top left of the tool for an explanation of each part.