Reading Experience Kit — Progress Bar, Table of Contents & Read Time (WordPress Plugin)

Long content loses readers. This keeps them.

The longer and better your blog posts get, the more visitors bounce before reaching the affiliate links and comparison tables further down the page. Reading Experience Kit gives every long-form post three things that keep readers scrolling: a visual progress bar so they can see how far they’ve got, an auto-generated table of contents so they can jump straight to what they need, and an honest “X min read” badge computed from the post’s real word count — no guessing, no fixed number applied to everything.

Reading Experience Kit vs. the alternatives

• Reading progress bar: No plugin — ✗; Typical “read time” plugins — Rare, standalone plugin needed; Reading Experience Kit — ✓ built in
• Auto-generated table of contents: No plugin — ✗ (manual only); Typical “read time” plugins — Rare, standalone plugin needed; Reading Experience Kit — ✓ built in
• Read-time badge from real word count: No plugin — ✗; Typical “read time” plugins — ✓; Reading Experience Kit — ✓
• All three in one lightweight plugin: No plugin — ✗; Typical “read time” plugins — ✗ (usually 3 separate plugins); Reading Experience Kit — ✓
• Per-feature on/off + styling controls: No plugin — —; Typical “read time” plugins — Varies; Reading Experience Kit — ✓
• Ongoing cost: No plugin — Free; Typical “read time” plugins — Often subscription; Reading Experience Kit — One-time payment

What’s inside

• Reading progress bar fixed to the top of the viewport, tracking scroll through the actual content container (not the whole page, including comments/footer)
• Auto-built, collapsible Table of Contents pulled straight from your post’s H2/H3 headings — only appears once a post has enough headings to need one (threshold you control)
• “X min read” badge calculated from real word count and your chosen words-per-minute rate
• Independent on/off toggle for each of the three features
• Choose which post types get the kit (blog posts by default, extendable to pages/products)
• Bar color, height and position, TOC default collapsed/expanded state, and label wording — all configurable

FAQ

Do I have to add headings manually for the table of contents? No — it reads your existing H2/H3 headings automatically. Just write your post normally.

Will it show a table of contents on a short post where it doesn’t make sense? No — there’s a minimum-heading threshold (default 3) below which it stays hidden.

Can I use just the read-time badge and skip the other two? Yes, every feature is an independent toggle.

Will it affect my page speed? No — it’s lightweight vanilla JS with no external requests or heavy libraries.

Honesty note: this is a single-site license for one WordPress installation. It’s a self-contained plugin with no ongoing subscription — future feature updates aren’t automatic, so if you’d like a newer version down the line, just get in touch.