diff --git a/spacy/cli/benchmark_speed.py b/spacy/cli/benchmark_speed.py
index 0d1015103..4eb20a5fa 100644
--- a/spacy/cli/benchmark_speed.py
+++ b/spacy/cli/benchmark_speed.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ from pathlib import Path
 import time
 from tqdm import tqdm
 import typer
+from wasabi import msg
 
 from .. import util
 from ..language import Language
@@ -41,6 +42,9 @@ def benchmark_speed_cli(
     corpus = Corpus(data_path)
     docs = [eg.predicted for eg in corpus(nlp)]
 
+    if len(docs) == 0:
+        msg.fail("Cannot benchmark speed using an empty corpus.", exits=1)
+
     print(f"Warming up for {warmup_epochs} epochs...")
     warmup(nlp, docs, warmup_epochs, batch_size)