The standard rule of thumb
For standard double-spaced academic or business formatting — 12-point Times New Roman, 1-inch margins — a single page holds roughly 250 words. Single-spaced, that roughly doubles to about 500 words per page. These figures are the near-universal baseline used by most word-count-to-page-count estimators and style guides, and they're accurate enough for planning purposes, though the exact number always shifts a bit based on font, spacing, and how much of the page is text versus headings, images, or white space.
Quick reference table
Double-spaced: 1 page ≈ 250 words, 2 pages ≈ 500 words, 3 pages ≈ 750 words, 5 pages ≈ 1,250 words, 10 pages ≈ 2,500 words. Single-spaced: 1 page ≈ 500 words, 2 pages ≈ 1,000 words, 5 pages ≈ 2,500 words, 10 pages ≈ 5,000 words. These are estimates for standard formatting — a page with a lot of headings, bullet points, or block quotes fits noticeably fewer words than a page of dense continuous prose.
Check your exact word count
What actually changes the ratio
Font choice and size matter more than most people expect — a page in 11-point Arial fits noticeably more text than the same page in 12-point Times New Roman, and font families with wider default letter spacing pack in fewer words per line. Margin width has a similarly direct effect: a 1-inch margin is standard, but a 1.5-inch margin shrinks the usable text area and, with it, the words-per-page count. Line spacing is the single biggest lever of all — the jump from single to double spacing roughly halves how much text fits on a page, which is exactly why academic assignments that specify double-spacing effectively require close to double the words of an equivalent single-spaced page count.
Why 'how many pages is my word count' is the more reliable question
Because page count depends so heavily on formatting choices you might not control (a professor's required font and spacing, a submission portal's template), working from an actual word count — checked directly rather than estimated by eye — and then converting to the expected page count using the ratios above is more reliable than trying to judge page length visually while drafting. If an assignment specifies both a word count and a page count and they don't seem to match using the standard ratios, the word count is almost always the one that actually gets checked and graded.