Typing Speed Test

Measure your WPM and see which keys slow you down

This typing speed test times you while you copy sentences from the screen. It counts only the characters that match the sentence, then converts them to words per minute (WPM), where five characters, spaces included, make one word. You can pick 30 seconds, 1 minute or 2 minutes, and the clock starts with your first keystroke.

A single number rarely tells you what to fix, so the result is split into three views. A speed chart shows each second of the run, so you can see whether you started fast and faded or slowed down after a mistake. A keyboard drawing colors the keys you missed. And runs with the same settings stack up as bars, so you can check whether practice is working.

When it is worth measuring your typing speed

Most people only have a feeling about how fast they type. A number taken under the same conditions each time lets you compare a new keyboard, a new posture or a week of practice.

• Switching keyboards: after moving to a laptop, a mechanical board or a different layout, run the same 1-minute test for a few days and watch when you get back to your old speed.
• Checking that practice works: test once before you start, practice for a week, then test again with the same settings and compare the bars.
• Typing for work: for meeting notes, support chats or transcription, paste a realistic passage into “My text” and measure that instead of generic sentences.
• Watching a child learn: look at accuracy and the most missed characters before speed, because they show which keys need more practice.

How a run works

1. Choose the time (30 seconds, 1 minute or 2 minutes) and the sentences (built-in or your own text).
2. Type the sentence shown above the box exactly as written. The clock starts with the first character.
3. When you finish a sentence, press Enter or Space to go to the next one. If you press Enter early, the characters you skipped are not counted as errors.
4. You can fix a mistake with Backspace. A fixed mistake no longer counts as an error left, but it still counts as a mistake made, so it lowers your accuracy.
5. When time is up you get your WPM, raw WPM, accuracy and errors left, and the keyboard turns into a map of the keys you missed.
6. Retry only the sentences you missed, or repeat the same sentences from the start and compare.

How WPM is counted here

The standard definition of a “word” in typing research is five characters. I. Scott MacKenzie writes that this definition “includes spaces, punctuation, or other characters in the inputted text.” So a 300-character passage is 60 words, whatever the actual words look like.

• Every character is one stroke: letters, digits, punctuation and spaces each count 1. Capital letters count 1 as well, and Shift is not counted separately.
• Line break: when you finish a sentence and press Enter or Space to move on, that line break counts as 1 correct character.
• Only correct characters count: your text is aligned with the sentence character by character, and only characters equal to the sentence are added to your WPM.
• Last character: if your input method is still composing a character, it is not scored until you commit it. This only matters for IME users.

Formulas

• Correct characters: the alignment uses edit distance (substitute, omit, extra), so skipping one letter does not turn every following letter into an error.
• Errors left: the differences still in your text when time ends. A wrong letter, a missing letter and an extra letter each count 1.
• Mistakes made: how many times a new difference appeared while you typed, including those you fixed with Backspace.
• Time: from your first keystroke to the end of the chosen time. If you switch to another tab the clock pauses and resumes when you type again.

Why the same run gives different numbers

Suppose you type for exactly 1 minute and produce 300 characters, including spaces. At the end, 285 of them match the sentence and 15 do not. While typing you made 18 mistakes in all, because 3 were fixed with Backspace. The same run can be reported four ways.

Raw WPM ignores errors. Net WPM, as defined on speedtypingonline.com, subtracts the uncorrected errors per minute from the gross figure. The WPM shown here takes a third route: it counts only characters that match the sentence, so a wrong character adds nothing instead of costing a fixed penalty. The raw WPM is also listed in your result, so you can compare with sites that report it. Because sites differ on errors, timing and line breaks, compare results from the same tool under the same settings.

Reading the keyboard drawing

• While you type: the highlighted key is the next one to press. If the next character needs Shift, Shift is highlighted too. After a wrong character, Backspace lights up, and after a finished sentence, Enter does.
• After the run: keys where you made mistakes turn red, darker for more misses, with the number of misses in the corner of the key. If you typed r where the sentence had e, the E key is the one marked.
• Most missed characters: the list under the keyboard pairs the sentence character with what you typed. If the same pair repeats, practice the finger movement between those two keys.

On narrow screens the keyboard is hidden while you type and shown as a map after the run. The drawing uses the standard QWERTY layout.

What counts as a good WPM?

Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta (CHI 2018) analyzed 136,857,600 keystrokes from 168,960 volunteers who copied English sentences online. WPM was the transcribed length in five-character words divided by the minutes from the first to the last keypress. The mean was 51.56 WPM with a standard deviation of 20.2. The comparison line on this page uses these values, and Palin et al. (2019) for phones.

The study also found that trained typists were about 5 WPM faster than the others (54.35 against 49.00), and that the uncorrected error rate averaged 1.167%. On phones, the 37,370 volunteers in Palin et al. averaged 36.17 WPM (SD 13.22), about 15 WPM below physical keyboards; 75% typed below 43.98 WPM, and the fastest passed 80 WPM. Two-thumb typists were fastest (mean 38.02) and one-finger typists averaged 29.2. Uncorrected errors were also higher on phones, 2.34% against 1.17%. Both studies used English sentences, so treat these figures as a guide, not a grade.

Using your results to improve

• Test under the same conditions: history bars only group runs with the same text, time and sentence source. A 30-second run and a 1-minute run are saved separately.
• Raise accuracy first: every mistake costs the time it takes to notice and fix it. If your accuracy is low, try slowing down a little so you make fewer mistakes, then compare the result with your earlier bars under the same settings.
• Use more fingers: in Dhakal et al., fast typists used 8.4 fingers on average against 5.3 for slow typists, and they pressed the next key before releasing the previous one for 40 to 70% of keypresses. The average gap between keystrokes was 238.656 ms. Check which finger covers the keys that light up most often.
• Retry only the misses: “Retry missed sentences” replays the sentences where you made a mistake. That run is not added to your history.

When the numbers look wrong

• Caps Lock: if capitals are on, every lowercase letter in the sentence is wrong. Turn it off and press “Same sentences again”.
• Wrong keyboard layout: if the letters on screen are not the ones you pressed, your system is set to another layout.
• Phone autocorrect: autocomplete or autocorrect that rewrites the previous word makes that word count as errors. Switching it off for the test is more accurate.
• Pasting: pasting and dropping text are blocked, so each sentence has to be typed.
• Double spaces: an extra space is one error. Space at the end of a sentence already moves you to the next one, so you do not need to press it twice.

Limits

• This is not an official exam or certificate. Compare your results with your own earlier results from the same tool.
• Sites count WPM differently. Here only characters that match the sentence count, with five characters per word and Shift not counted.
• The keyboard drawing and next-key hints assume the standard QWERTY layout. If you use Dvorak or another layout, the highlighted positions differ.
• A character still being composed by an input method is not scored until it is committed, so the moment it appears on screen can vary slightly between input methods.
• The comparison scale comes from studies in which people copied English sentences. Longer sentences or harder vocabulary can change anyone’s WPM.
• History stays in this browser only. Clearing browser data or opening the page on another device will not show it.

Checked The sources below were checked on 2026-10-21.

Sources

• 01Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson, Oulasvirta (2018) Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, CHI 2018168,960 participants, mean 51.56 WPM (SD 20.2), top and bottom 10% near 78 and 26 WPM, fingers used, rollover
• 02Palin, Feit, Kim, Kristensson, Oulasvirta (2019) How do People Type on Mobile Devices?, MobileHCI 201937,370 volunteers, phone mean 36.17 WPM (SD 13.22), two thumbs versus one finger
• 03I. Scott MacKenzie: A note on calculating text entry speedA word is five characters, including spaces and punctuation
• 04Speed Typing Online: Typing equationsGross WPM has no error penalty; net WPM subtracts uncorrected errors per minute
• 05MDN: Element compositionend eventWhen an input method finishes composing a character

Frequently asked questions

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