Worth The Read
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.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.3★ from 27
- Active installs
- 3k+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 26 Aug 2026
- Added
- Aug 2016
- Requires WP
- 3.8
- Tested up to
- WP 7.1
- Downloads
- 117,112
Our analysis
AI-assistedWorth The Read is a WordPress plugin that adds a reading progress bar to your posts and pages, indicating how far users have scrolled. It is designed to be unobtrusive, only displaying when users begin to scroll, and can be customised in terms of placement and colour. Additionally, it features a reading time commitment indicator that can be enabled and styled according to your preferences.
This plugin is suitable for website owners who want to enhance user engagement by showing visitors their reading progress and estimated reading time. It can be particularly useful for blogs, articles, or any content-heavy sites where user retention is important.
Best for: This plugin suits bloggers and content creators looking to improve user engagement on their sites.
What it does well
- ✓Lightweight and unobtrusive design
- ✓Customisable placement and colour of the progress bar
- ✓Reading time commitment feature available
- ✓Progress bar only displays during scrolling
- ✓Shortcode available for time commitment label placement
Where it falls short
- •Limited information on additional features or settings
Verdict
Worth The Read provides a simple solution for tracking reading progress and time, making it a practical choice for content-focused websites.
From the developer
brianmcculloh's own description of Worth The Read, lightly tidied.
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 label anywhere you want via the [wtr-time] shortcode.