Paste a sectioned lyric, set a tempo, and see how long the song actually runs — and whether the sections are balanced.
Writers are usually surprised by how short their song is, or how long. Four verses and a chorus feels like a full song on the page and comes out at ninety seconds. Two verses with long lines and a slow tempo comes out at five minutes without anyone noticing. This tool times each section from your line count and tempo, then tells you where the weight actually sits.
Estimate it and the timing shows up here.
Why line count is a better clock than word count
Songs are timed by bars, not by words. A line of lyric almost always occupies one musical phrase, and a phrase is a fixed number of beats. So the clock is: lines, times beats per line, divided by tempo. Word count barely enters into it — a line with three words and a line with eleven take the same four beats if the melody says so. That is also why cramming more words into a line does not make a song longer; it makes it denser.
Worked example: 32 lines of lyric, 4 beats per line, at 100 BPM. That is 128 beats, which at 100 beats per minute is 76.8 seconds. Add a two-bar pad before each of three choruses — 24 more beats, 14.4 seconds — and you are at about 91 seconds. To reach three minutes at the same tempo you need roughly 68 lines, not 40.
How to use the result
- If the chorus is shorter than the verse, that is usually backwards. The chorus is the part people came for; it should be the longest single section or very close to it.
- A section taking more than 40% of the song is a structural decision, not a mistake — but make it deliberately. Four verses and one chorus puts 60% of the runtime in setup.
- The estimate assumes one line per phrase with no instrumental space. Real records add intros, turnarounds and solos. Add 15 to 20% if you are recording with a band rather than a click and a guitar.
- If the total is short, add a section rather than slowing the tempo. Dropping from 100 to 80 BPM to gain thirty seconds makes a pop song feel like a different, sleepier record.
Questions people ask
- How accurate is this?
Within about ten percent for a straightforward arrangement. It cannot account for rubato, held notes, gaps between lines, or a singer who rushes, so treat it as a planning number rather than a promise. The section shares are the more useful output.
- Why does it need section markers?
Because the balance between sections is the part worth measuring. Without markers it treats the whole lyric as one block, which tells you the length but tells you nothing about structure.
- What counts as a section marker?
A line on its own that names a section: [Verse 1], Chorus:, (Bridge), Pre-Chorus, Intro, Outro, Hook, Solo, Break. Blank lines between sections are optional. Anything else is treated as lyric.
- Should my song be three minutes?
No. It should be as long as it needs to be, which for most contemporary genres means somewhere between two minutes and four. The format presets below give a working range, not a target, and short-form streaming has pushed the useful floor lower than it used to be.
What this tool does not do. It counts lines and does arithmetic. It cannot hear your tempo, your phrasing or your arrangement, and it has no idea whether your song is too long — only whether it is long. Instrumental sections you did not write down are not counted at all. Nothing is uploaded; everything runs in your browser and works offline. See the site disclaimer. Written by Nico, who builds these tools and writes about writing at WrittenTone.