How typing speed is measured
One "word" is five characters, including spaces — a convention that keeps the score fair whether you are typing short words or long ones. Words per minute is the number of correctly typed characters divided by five, divided by the minutes elapsed. Mistakes you leave in do not count towards the score.
What the numbers mean
- Under 30 wpm — hunting for keys. Learning touch typing is the single biggest improvement available.
- 40 wpm — the average for someone who uses a computer daily.
- 60–70 wpm — comfortable touch typing; fast enough that typing stops being the bottleneck.
- 80 wpm and above — professional typists and experienced programmers.
- Accuracy matters more. 50 wpm at 99% beats 70 wpm at 90%, because fixing errors costs more time than it saves.
How to use the test
- Just start typing. The clock begins with your first keystroke, not before.
- Watch the passage: correct characters turn bright, mistakes turn red, and the underline marks where you are.
- Pick a longer run — two or five minutes — for a figure that reflects how you actually type.
Getting faster
- Learn the home row and stop looking at the keyboard. Slow and correct beats fast and wrong while you learn.
- Practise in short sessions, ten minutes at a time, rather than one long one.
- Punctuation and numbers are where most people lose speed — the mixed and code passages are there for that.
- Sit properly: wrists up, elbows at about ninety degrees, screen at eye level. Speed follows comfort.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good typing speed?
Around 40 words per minute is average; 60 to 70 is comfortable touch typing. Accuracy above 97% matters more than raw speed, since corrections cost time.
How is WPM calculated?
A word counts as five characters. Correctly typed characters are divided by five and then by the minutes elapsed, so a 60-second run of 250 correct characters is 50 wpm.
Do mistakes count against me?
Yes. Only correct characters count towards the score, and the accuracy figure shows the share you got right. The raw speed line shows what you typed before mistakes were taken off.