Elevator Pitch Timer & Scorer

What an elevator pitch is, and what it is for

An elevator pitch is a short spoken introduction that tells a stranger who you are, what you do, and why it should matter to them, in the time it takes to ride a few floors. The name is a metaphor; the real settings are networking events, career fairs, the first thirty seconds of a sales call, a conference coffee queue, and the "tell me about yourself" question that opens most interviews.

Its job is not to close anything. It is to earn the next question. A good pitch leaves the listener wanting to ask "how do you do that?" or "who do you work with?", which turns a monologue into a conversation. If you measure a pitch by whether it got a follow-up question, most of the decisions about length and content make themselves.

That also means the pitch is not a biography. Nobody needs your education history, your full job title, or every service you offer. They need one clear sentence about the problem you solve, one piece of evidence that you solve it, and one reason to keep talking.

The structure of a 30, 60, and 90 second pitch

The same five beats work at every length. What changes is how much room each one gets. At thirty seconds, each beat is one sentence. At ninety, you have space for a short example and a question tailored to the listener.

• Hook: one line that makes them want to hear the next one. A surprising fact, a specific problem, or a question about their situation.
• Who you are: name, role, and the kind of people you work with. Plain words, no title inflation.
• What you do and the result: the problem you solve and one concrete outcome that proves it.
• What you want: what you are looking for from this conversation or in general, stated directly.
• Call to action: a question that hands the turn back to them.

Words per second: the maths behind the timer

Conversational speech runs at roughly two to two and a half words per second, which is 120 to 150 words per minute. This tool assumes about 2.3 words per second, so a 70-word pitch estimates at thirty seconds and a 140-word pitch at sixty. The estimate will be slightly long if you speak fast and slightly short if you pause well, which you should.

The practical consequence is that word count is the thing you can control on paper. If your draft is 220 words and you want a sixty-second pitch, you need to cut about a third, not speak faster. Speeding up to fit is the most common and most damaging fix: the listener gets more words and less meaning, and the pitch sounds like a recital.

Sentence length matters too. The scorer flags average sentence length above twenty words because long sentences are hard to say in one breath and hard to follow by ear. Spoken sentences of ten to fifteen words sound natural; written sentences of twenty-five words sound like reading aloud.

Three example pitches

Each of these runs between forty-five and sixty seconds and follows the five beats. Three things to notice across all of them: the problem comes before the credentials, there is exactly one number or concrete outcome, and the final sentence is a question the listener can answer easily.

Mistakes that sink an elevator pitch

• Opening with your title. "I am a Senior Solutions Consultant at..." tells the listener nothing they can picture. Open with the problem you solve.
• Jargon. "Leverage", "synergy", "end-to-end", "best-in-class" are flagged by the scorer because they are filler at the word level: they sound like meaning and contain none.
• Listing everything you do. Three services in a pitch means none of them lands. Pick the one this listener is most likely to care about.
• No number, no evidence. "I help companies grow" is a claim. "I helped a twelve-person agency double its retainer revenue in a year" is evidence.
• No ask. If the listener does not know what you want, they cannot help you. Say it.
• Ending on a statement. A pitch that ends with "...and that is what I do" leaves silence. End with a question that is easy to answer.
• Speeding up to fit. If it is too long, cut words, not pauses.
• Reciting. A memorised pitch delivered word for word sounds like one. Memorise the five beats and the one number; say the rest fresh.
• One pitch for every room. The hook and the ask should change with the listener. A recruiter, a potential client, and an investor want different things from the same thirty seconds.

How to practise an elevator pitch

Write it, score it, then stop writing. Paste your draft into the tool above and get it into the word range for the length you need, with no jargon flagged and an average sentence under fifteen words. That is the paper part, and it is the smaller part.

Then say it out loud with a timer, ten times, without looking at the text. The first three attempts will be slower and will drop sentences; that is useful, because the sentences you drop were the ones you did not need. By the tenth, the pitch should take the same time every run and you should be able to start it mid-sentence if interrupted.

Record one run and listen for the opening. Most pitches fail in the first sentence: it is where the fillers cluster, where people speed up, and where the title creeps back in. Rehearse the first sentence on its own until it is automatic.

Finally, practise it on a person who will ask a follow-up question, because the follow-up is the point. If you cannot answer "how do you do that?" in two sentences, the pitch has promised something you cannot yet explain.

For practice with a listener who always answers back, Pavone lets you deliver the pitch to an AI counterpart that asks the follow-up, then scores pace, clarity, confidence, and filler words so you can see what changed between run one and run ten.