Microsoft’s terms of service is the longest document among major tech platforms measured, running 15,260 words, a 63.5-minute read at a 240-words-per-minute pace, according to Visual Capitalist’s I Agree project (2020 data). Ranked against Reboot Online’s 2021 industry averages, only the typical dating-site agreement comes close, at 7,569 words. Below is the fullest ranked list of terms and conditions length by company and industry we could source and verify, longest to shortest.
If you are drafting your own document, the point of a ranked list like this is not to write the longest agreement possible. It is to see where your industry sits, and to judge whether your document’s length is doing useful legal work or just adding to the pile nobody reads.
Which terms and conditions document is the longest, ranked?
Microsoft tops every list we could verify at 15,260 words, ahead of Spotify at 8,600 words and the dating-industry average of 7,569 words. Combining Visual Capitalist’s 2020 company-level word counts with Reboot Online’s 2021 industry averages produces a single ranked table spanning individual companies and industry-wide figures side by side.
| Rank | Entity | Word count | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft (company) | 15,260 | 63.5 min |
| 2 | Spotify (company) | 8,600 | 35.8 min |
| 3 | Dating sites (industry average) | 7,569 | 58 min |
| 4 | TikTok (company) | 7,459 | 31.4 min |
| 5 | Fashion retail (industry average) | 5,036 | 39 min |
| 6 | Social networking (industry average) | 4,754 | 37 min |
| 7 | Job websites (industry average) | 4,423 | 34 min |
| 8 | Netflix (company) | 2,628 | 11 min |
| 9 | Children’s education (industry average) | 2,558 | 20 min |
| 10 | Instagram (company) | 2,451 | 9.7 min |
| 11 | Banking (industry average) | 2,368 | 18 min |
| 12 | Home & car insurance (industry average) | 1,682 | 13 min |
Company figures are Visual Capitalist’s I Agree project, 2020 data. Industry averages are Reboot Online’s 2021 study of 56 websites across 7 industries.
Figure 1: The seven longest terms and conditions entries by word count, mixing individual companies and industry averages. Sources: Visual Capitalist, 2020 data; Reboot Online, 2021.
Microsoft’s word count alone is larger than the next two entries on this list combined, which says as much about how legal teams scale documentation with company size and product surface area as it does about any single clause.
Which industries have the longest terms and conditions?
Dating sites, by a wide margin. Reboot Online’s 2021 study of 56 websites across 7 industries found dating-site terms and conditions average 7,569 words, well ahead of fashion retail at 5,036 words and social networking at 4,754 words. Home and car insurance sites sit at the opposite end, averaging just 1,682 words, less than a quarter of the dating-industry figure.
| Industry | Avg. word count | Avg. reading time | Avg. reading age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dating | 7,569 | 58 minutes | 18-19 |
| Fashion | 5,036 | 39 minutes | 17-18 |
| Social networking | 4,754 | 37 minutes | 18-19 |
| Job websites | 4,423 | 34 minutes | 19-20 |
| Children’s education | 2,558 | 20 minutes | 17-18 |
| Banking | 2,368 | 18 minutes | 19-20 |
| Home & car insurance | 1,682 | 13 minutes | 19-20 |
Figure 2: Share of combined word count across the five longest industry averages tested. Source: Reboot Online, 2021, 56 sites across 7 industries.
Every industry on this list writes for a legal audience first and a customer second, and word count is one of the more visible symptoms of that priority. Dating platforms in particular carry extensive user conduct, safety disclaimer, and background-check language that shorter categories like insurance simply do not need.
Does a longer terms and conditions also mean a harder read?
Not consistently. Reboot Online’s 2021 data scored each industry’s terms and conditions for reading age alongside word count, and the two do not move together. Job websites and banking both score the highest reading age tested, 19 to 20, even though job sites average 4,423 words, nearly double banking’s 2,368. Plotting word count against reading age shows industries scattered across all four quadrants rather than clustered along a single line.
Figure 3: Word count plotted against reading age for the same 7 industries. Coordinates are normalized within each axis’s observed range. Source: Reboot Online, 2021.
Banking and home and car insurance both land in the “short but hard to read” quadrant, which suggests regulated disclosure language can be dense without being long. For a fuller breakdown of how reading time compares to reading behavior across documents like these, see our terms and conditions reading time data.
Which terms and conditions are the shortest?
Home and car insurance terms are the shortest category Reboot Online tested, averaging 1,682 words, a 13-minute read. Among individual companies, Instagram’s 2,451-word terms of service was the shortest of the five Visual Capitalist measured in 2020, well under a fifth of Microsoft’s word count.
| Rank (shortest first) | Entity | Word count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Home & car insurance (industry average) | 1,682 |
| 2 | Banking (industry average) | 2,368 |
| 3 | Instagram (company) | 2,451 |
Short does not automatically mean simpler for the reader, as the reading-age comparison above shows, but it does mean less total text standing between a customer and the parts of the agreement that actually matter to them. For the separate question of how many people read either version of these documents, we cover that in our terms and conditions statistics roundup.
Why do some industries write longer terms and conditions than others?
Liability exposure and user-generated content appear to be the strongest predictors in this dataset. Industries where users interact directly with strangers, dating, social networking, or job matching, carry the longest average word counts, largely because they need extensive conduct rules, safety disclaimers, and background-check language. Heavily regulated categories like banking and insurance write to a standardized disclosure format instead, which tends to produce shorter documents even when the underlying reading level stays high.
Figure 4: How exposure to user-generated content and liability correlates with document length across the industries tested. Source: synthesized from Reboot Online, 2021 data above.
This pattern is not a rule, since Microsoft’s 15,260-word terms of service belongs to neither category and still outranks every industry average, but it explains most of the spread between the shortest and longest entries on this list.
How has terms and conditions length research evolved?
The measurement work behind this list spans nearly two decades. Aleecia McDonald and Lorrie Cranor’s 2008 Carnegie Mellon study first quantified the reading-time cost of legal document length at national scale, estimating that reading every privacy policy the average American encountered in a year would take about 244 hours. Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies and 18,573 participants later pinned adult non-fiction reading speed at 238 words per minute, close to the 240-words-per-minute pace Visual Capitalist used for its 2020 company comparisons.
Figure 5: Key milestones in terms and conditions length research. Sources: McDonald & Cranor (2008), Brysbaert (2019), Visual Capitalist (2020), Reboot Online (2021).
Each study used a different method, national reading-time modeling, a reading-speed meta-analysis, and direct word counts, but they point the same direction: length has been worth measuring for a long time because it keeps growing while reading habits do not.
The Bottom Line
The number that anchors this entire list is 15,260. That is how long Microsoft’s terms of service ran in Visual Capitalist’s 2020 measurement, more than nine times the length of the shortest industry average on this page. Rank matters less than what a specific number tells you about your own document: dating, social, and job-matching sites write long agreements because they carry real liability, while insurance and banking stay short by following a standardized disclosure format. Neither approach determines whether the document is actually usable. If you are publishing your own terms and conditions, a terms and conditions generator gives you a plain-language starting structure sized to what your business actually needs to disclose, not to where you want to land on a length ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which company has the longest terms of service? Microsoft, at 15,260 words, according to Visual Capitalist’s I Agree project (2020 data). That is a 63.5-minute read at a 240-words-per-minute pace, more than six times longer than Instagram’s 2,451-word document in the same analysis.
Which industry has the longest terms and conditions? Dating sites, averaging 7,569 words, according to Reboot Online’s 2021 study of 56 websites across 7 industries. Fashion retailers rank second at 5,036 words, and social networking platforms rank third at 4,754 words.
What is the shortest terms and conditions on record? Home and car insurance sites carry the shortest terms and conditions of any industry tested, averaging 1,682 words, per Reboot Online’s 2021 study. Among individual companies, Instagram’s 2,451-word terms of service was the shortest Visual Capitalist measured in 2020.
Does a longer terms and conditions mean it is harder to read? Not consistently. Reboot Online’s 2021 data put job websites and banking terms at the highest reading age tested, 19 to 20, despite job sites averaging 4,423 words and banking averaging just 2,368, less than a third of the longest industry’s word count.
Sources and References
- Visual Capitalist. (2021). “Visualizing the Length of the Fine Print, for 14 Popular Apps.” Word count and reading-time analysis, 2020 data, 240 words-per-minute assumption.
- Reboot Online. (2021). “The Industries with the Longest Terms and Conditions.” Word count, reading-time, and reading-age analysis of 56 websites across 7 industries.
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). “How Many Words Do We Read Per Minute? A Review and Meta-Analysis of Reading Rate.” Journal of Memory and Language, 109. Meta-analysis of 190 studies, 18,573 participants.
- McDonald, A. M., & Cranor, L. F. (2008). “The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies.” A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, 4(3), Carnegie Mellon University.
Note: All figures verified as of August 2026. Company-level word counts reflect a 2020 snapshot and change whenever a company revises its terms; industry averages reflect Reboot Online’s 2021 sample of 56 websites. Length figures are refreshed at least twice a year as newer data becomes available.
