Typing Speed Test
Type a real sentence, not a list of random words. You get words per minute, accuracy and consistency, your history is kept in this browser, and there is nothing to sign up for.
- Free forever
- No sign-up
- Never leaves your device
Type the passage. The timer starts on your first keystroke. Mistakes are shown as you go and count against your accuracy, and you can correct them.
Your history
At a glance
- Price
- Free, with no usage limit
- Account
- Not required
- Watermark
- None
- Your data
- Processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded
- Works on
- Any modern browser, desktop or mobile
What the three numbers mean
Words per minute uses the standard convention of five characters to a word, including spaces. That definition exists so that typing encyclopaedia is not worth four times as much as typing cat, and it is what every comparable test uses — so a WPM figure from here is broadly comparable with one from anywhere else.
Accuracy is correct characters as a share of everything you typed. Only correct characters count towards your speed, so a fast run full of errors scores lower than it feels.
Consistency is the one most tests leave out, and often the most useful. It measures how steady your pace was across the passage, sampled once a second. A steady 50 words per minute and a 50 made of bursts and stalls are different skills, and only the first one holds up over a long document.
Where you probably sit
| Speed | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Under 25 wpm | Hunt and peck, or typing on a phone keyboard |
| 30–45 wpm | Typical for an adult who types regularly but never learned touch typing |
| 50–70 wpm | Comfortable touch typing. Most professional office work sits here |
| 80–100 wpm | Fast. Usually someone who types for a living |
| Over 100 wpm | Unusual, and almost always with deliberate practice behind it |
Two things distort these comparisons more than people allow for. Keyboard layout matters — a laptop's short key travel produces different numbers from a mechanical board, and the difference can be ten words per minute for the same person. And the text matters enormously: common words with familiar letter pairs are far faster than technical vocabulary, which is why a test on random words tends to flatter you and a test on real prose does not.
Why real sentences
Most typing tests use a shuffled list of the 200 commonest English words. It produces higher numbers and measures something nobody ever does. Real prose has capital letters at the start of sentences, commas that need a reach, and the letter combinations English actually contains.
The result is usually 10 to 20 per cent lower than a word-list score. That is not the test being harsh; it is the word list being unrepresentative of anything you will type tomorrow.
What actually makes you faster
Accuracy first, speed second. This is the one piece of advice that survives contact with the evidence. Every correction costs the time to notice the error, reach for backspace, delete and retype — comfortably a second, which at 60 words per minute is a whole word. Slowing down until you stop making errors is, counter-intuitively, the fastest route to a higher number.
Look at the screen, not the keys. The moment your eyes leave the text you lose your place, and finding it again costs more than the keystroke saved.
Practise the letter pairs you actually stumble on. The consistency score is what points at these. A low consistency with a decent average almost always means a handful of specific combinations — often those needing the same finger twice, or a reach to a number — are stalling you rather than general slowness.
Fifteen minutes a day beats two hours on Sunday. Typing is a motor skill, and motor skills consolidate with spacing rather than with volume. Improvement is real but slow: a few words per minute a month is a normal rate for someone already touch-typing.
What this test does not do
It does not check whether you are touch typing, and it cannot. A very fast two-finger typist scores higher than a slow touch typist, which is the correct answer to the question being asked and the wrong answer to "should I learn to touch type".
It also runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is transmitted anywhere, which matters here more than on most tests, because a typing test is one of the few places people paste real text to try it out.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good typing speed?
Around 40 words per minute is average for an adult who types regularly. 60 to 70 is comfortably fast, and above 100 is unusual outside people who type for a living. Accuracy matters more than raw speed for most real work, because corrections cost more time than they save.
How is words per minute calculated?
The standard definition treats a word as five characters including spaces, so WPM is your correct characters divided by five, divided by the minutes elapsed. That convention exists so that typing long words is not unfairly penalised, and it is what every comparable test uses.
What is the consistency score?
How steady your speed was across the test, expressed as a percentage. A high score means you typed at an even pace; a low one means bursts and stalls. It is often more revealing than WPM, because unsteady typing usually points at specific letter combinations rather than general slowness.
Why real sentences rather than random words?
Because random word lists measure something you will never do. Real prose has punctuation, capitals and the letter patterns English actually uses, so the number it produces is closer to how fast you write an email.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The test runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type leaves the device. Your results are stored locally so you can see your history, and there is no account to create.