I get asked all the time “how many words are in a page?” And I sometimes have to laugh at what people think a “page” of writing is.
I’ll have people reach out to me and need something edited. “It’s just one page“, they say.
Then they send it to me. Oh yea, it’s one page all right. It’s in 8pt font, single spaced, with left and right margins stretched to the hilt. There are 727 words on this one “page”.
Or better still, we have the professor who thinks his homepage, with six different sections, all with five different pieces with “learn more” callouts, equals a “page”.
C’mon, get out of here with that. That’s the polar opposite of the third grader’s trick of using larger fonts and fat margins when assigned a “five page report”. But you’re not in third grade anymore.
Let’s settle this. Professional copywriter Dan Furman will now define, once and for all, how long a “page” is.
A “page” is 150 – 350 words. That’s it.
Can a page “technically” be longer? Sure. And in the case of web pages, they can go on forever.
But for business purposes, in terms of billing and project length, a page is 150 – 350 words.
There, it’s settled. And fellow copywriters, feel free to show this to those clients who insist on sending you 2100 words for a three page project. I’ve been in the writing business since the turn of the century, and I know what I am talking about. 150 – 350 words. That’s a page.