An adjustable progress meter showing how much of the post/page the user has scrolled through, and a read time commitment label near the post titles.
As of April 2026, Worth The Read is a WordPress length plugin with 4.0K+ active installations and a 4.3/5 rating from 27 reviews. It has been downloaded 114K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 3.8+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2016. Last updated 1 year ago — may have compatibility concerns. Downloads are up 96% this week. Top alternative: Title Limit for WooCommerce.
A very unobtrusive and light-weight reading progress bar indicator showing the user how far scrolled through the current post or page they are. You can control placement and color of the progress bar, and you can choose whether it includes just the main content or also the comments.
The progress bar only displays once the user begins scrolling the page so it is as unobtrusive as possible. Once the user stops scrolling or scrolls down past the content the progress bar subtly mutes until it is needed again.
There is also a reading time commitment feature that you can separately enable. Control the placement (above or below title, or above content), style, and whether it displays on posts and/or pages. Uses 200wpm as the metric for average reading time.
You can also place the time commitment…
Best parts? It works!
Keep on keepin’ on …
Looks very promising, but on my site, nothing was added.
Thank You for this
Is the best reading progress bar and time plugin for WordPress sites! Thanks for your great work!
It’s a simple progress bar plugin (that also displays read time) with all the necessary functional and customized options. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet it’s totally free. Almost every plugin I have (even premium ones), I’ve always done some retouch. Except for the “worth the read” plugin. Nice job!
| WordPress | 3.8+ requiredTested up to 6.7.5 |
| PHP | false+ required |
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.