Its appearance is very similar to the house wren's, 11.5 to 12.5 cm (4.5 to 4.7 inches) long, with brown head and upperparts, barred with black on the wings and narrow tail. It has a stronger buff eyebrow stripe and black eyestripe than the house wren. Below it is buffy, grayer (more like the house wren) in subspecies cahooni of northern Mexico and Arizona, more ocher in the other subspecies. The flanks and undertail coverts have dark brown bars.
The voice is also similar to the house wren's. The song consists of "scratchy, chortling, warbling, and trilling" sounds, and there are scolding calls starting with a ch sound, as well as a mewing call. One sound not in the house wren's repertoire is "a bright springy trill, tseeeurr or ssreeuur, suggesting a rock wren."
The brown-throated wren's behavior is, perhaps unsurprisingly, similar to the house wren's: typically skulking but not infrequently visible, especially when singing from an open perch.
