If you wonder whether to count pages or minutes, the answer depends on what you read. Pages suit books of a similar format, minutes suit mixed reading: paper, ebooks, audiobooks and comics. Many people pick one and only after a week notice the other would have fit better. This piece will help you choose straight away.

Pages or minutes: which is better to count

A page counter

Simple, visible and independent of pace. It shows how much of the book is left. It does worse when you read a comic and a dense piece of reportage: a page is not a page.

A reading timer

Evens out formats and paces. What counts is the time spent with the book, not how many pages you turned. It needs starting and stopping, so it works if you like fixed sessions.

A page counter: when it works

Best when you read paper or ebooks of similar text density. You enter the page number after reading and your progress and daily goal work themselves out. Five seconds and done. It pairs well with a sensible goal, covered in how many pages a day to read.

Weak spots: a thin manga and a thick novel “count” differently, and an audiobook simply has no pages.

A reading timer: when it works

It works well when you:

  • read in fixed blocks of time, such as 20 minutes on the tram,
  • mix paper, ebooks and audiobooks,
  • want to compare yourself with friends regardless of pace.

Weak spots: you must remember the stopwatch, and pauses (phone, conversation) can be counted if you forget to stop it. Lubimyczytać, for example, has its own “Czytomierz”, a reading timer with a virtual bookmark (checked 3 October 2026; the page is in Polish).

Minutes are also the simplest way to log audiobooks, since a recording has no pages. Whether listening counts as reading at all is in do audiobooks count as reading?

How to combine the two

The simplest method: a daily goal in pages, with time optional. You log the page where you stopped, and if you had a long session you add minutes. That is how Talemi works: you log a page number and optionally the reading time, and book progress, stats and matching challenges update on their own. You can time a session with the built-in reading timer, which keeps counting when you put the phone away, or enter the minutes by hand.

For audiobooks, count minutes. If you know the length of the recording you can also convert it to approximate pages, but that is only an estimate.

How to set a daily goal

  1. Measure a typical session. For three days, log how many pages or minutes you really read.
  2. Take the smaller number. If it comes out at 12 pages, set 10; if 20 minutes, set 15.
  3. Check after a week. If it is easy, raise it a little. If it is hard, stay or lower it.

If you want the full picture, also see how to track reading progress and our guide to reading tracker apps. For a goal counted in books a year, see how many books a year to read and 52 books in a year. What these logs add up to is shown on our reading stats page.

Want to log pages and minutes in one place? See how Talemi works and join early access.

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