Typing Test – Check Your WPM Speed

Check your speed and accuracy with the free HypestKey typing test. Pick 15, 30, 60 or 120 seconds. Type the words. Results come at once: words per minute, accuracy, raw WPM and a breakdown of your characters. No sign up, nothing to install. Any keyboard works, on a laptop or on a phone.

Most people land somewhere between 40 and 60 WPM on a typing test like this one. Below we go through what your score says, what speed different jobs ask for, and how to get faster without losing accuracy.

How to use the typing test

Pick a length, click the box, type what you see. Space after each word. The clock starts on your first key. When it hits zero you get your numbers. For a fair score we’d average two or three runs.

1. Pick a test length at the top. 15 seconds for a quick number, 30 or 60 for a normal run, 120 for something more accurate.
2. Click anywhere and start typing the words in the box. On a phone or tablet, tap the words to open the on-screen keyboard.
3. The clock starts as soon as you press the first key. Type each word and press Space to go to the next one.
4. Keep going until the timer hits zero. Press Tab or Restart test at any moment to start over with new words.
5. Read your WPM, accuracy, raw WPM and the Characters line on the right when time is up.
6. Press Copy result to save your score. Then run two or three more tests and take the average.

How WPM is counted

One “word” is 5 characters, the usual standard. Your WPM is the number of correct characters divided by 5, then divided by the minutes. 250 correct characters in 60 seconds? 50 WPM. The real length of the words doesn’t matter.

Words come at random from a list of 200 common English words. Each word is scored when you press Space.

The timer runs on the browser’s own high resolution clock, not on a coarse interval timer. The bar graph shows your WPM for each second.

One limit worth knowing. A 15 second run is quick but noisy, since one slow word changes the result a lot. Comparing over weeks? We’d stick to 60 or 120 seconds.

What your WPM says

Got your result? These bands are rules of thumb, not an official scale. The tool uses the same ones in its verdict.

Under 30 WPM, you’re still learning. Probably looking at the keyboard a lot. Best thing you can do right now is force yourself to keep your eyes on the screen. Yeah, it’s annoying at first. Do it anyway.

From 30 to 40 WPM you’re below average, but you can function. Most people who never bothered learning proper typing end up here. The two-finger crowd, usually.

At 40 to 60 WPM you’re average. Tons of people type in this range and do their jobs fine. Nothing wrong with it.

With 60 to 80 WPM you’re solid and faster than most people. Data entry jobs want you in this range. Emails fly out, reports get done.

At 80 to 100 WPM you’re at professional level. Transcriptionists, executive assistants, people who type for a living. You’re probably using all ten fingers without thinking about it.

Over 100 WPM is rare. Maybe 1% of people get there, although nobody has an exact figure. Competitive typists hit 150, 180, sometimes 200+ in short runs. Those folks have been practicing for years, though.

Average typing speed in a large typing test study

About 52 WPM. That’s the average in a study by Aalto University and the University of Cambridge. 136 million keystrokes, 168,000 volunteers, an online typing test with random sentences.

• Average participant: 52 WPM.
• Fastest participants: around 120 WPM.
• Fast typists pressed the next key before releasing the last one on 40 to 70% of keystrokes. Rollover, the researchers call it.
• A past typing course made little visible difference to speed or errors.

Faster typists also made fewer mistakes. So accuracy and speed grow together, not against each other. The data set is public on the Aalto project page.

Where does that leave your score? Around 50? You type like the typical participant. 70 or more puts you well ahead of most of them.

Typing test 80 WPM: what the number takes

80 WPM in a typing test means 400 correct characters per minute. Roughly six and a half per second, with no time lost to Backspace.

Handy if a job listing names a target. The table shows how many correct characters each length needs.

The first number in the Characters line of your result is the one to compare. Extra and incorrect letters don’t count toward it.

Chasing 80? Run the 60 second test a few times a week and log the result. Short 15 second bursts flatter the score, so we’d ignore those for this goal.

Speeds that jobs ask for

Wondering if your speed cuts it for work? For general office work, about 40 WPM is enough. Emails, documents, nothing crazy. Most companies won’t even test you.

As an admin or secretary you should be closer to 50 or 60 WPM. More volume there: meeting notes, letters, that kind of thing.

In data entry they actually care about your numbers. In many listings, 60 to 80 WPM with high accuracy gets you hired. Errors cost money here, so don’t trade precision for speed.

For medical and legal transcription, 80+ WPM is the usual bar. You type what you hear in real time, often with specialized terminology. Demanding work, and it pays accordingly.

Court reporters are the speed demons here. They use stenotype machines and hit 200+ WPM. Regular keyboard tests don’t even apply to them.

Most of that office typing lands in Word and Outlook. Setting up a new work PC? Our Office Home & Business 2024 key covers both, for PC or Mac.

Accuracy before speed

Every error costs you time to fix. Someone at 50 WPM with almost no errors usually finishes a text sooner than someone at 70 WPM with typos everywhere. Each mistake is Backspace plus a retype.

Nobody cares if you type 80 WPM when half of it is wrong. You’ll just spend all that time fixing mistakes. Backspace, retype, backspace, retype. It adds up.

Fifty clean words beat seventy messy ones. Just how it works.

Above all, get your accuracy over 95% before you start pushing speed. Bad habits are hard to break later. The test warns you when you’re below that.

WPM and raw WPM

Notice the two numbers. They measure different things.

A big gap between raw and regular WPM? Too many errors. That gap is basically wasted effort.

Say your raw WPM is 65 but your WPM is 55. That 10 word difference is all mistakes. You typed 65 words worth of characters but only 55 counted. Slow down a bit and that gap closes.

More than a few WPM apart? We’d slow down a bit.

Faster without losing accuracy

So you want to improve. Here’s what actually works. People who do this daily usually see clear gains within a few weeks.

First, learn where your fingers go. A, S, D, F for the left hand. J, K, L and semicolon for the right. Thumbs on Space. Every finger has assigned keys. Awkward at first, but non-negotiable for serious speed.

Don’t look at the keyboard. Cover it with a cloth if you have to. Your hands need to learn through feel, not sight. Yes, you’ll type slower at first. Push through it.

Do a little every day instead of cramming. 10 to 15 minutes, for example. Your fingers need time to remember the motions.

Work on problem keys. Everyone has them. Maybe it’s the B key or the numbers row. Identify what slows you down and drill those specifically. A key feels like it misses presses? Check it in the keyboard tester before you blame your fingers.

Letters coming out wrong, like Z and Y swapped? That’s a keyboard layout problem, not your hands. See how to change the keyboard layout in Windows 11 or switch the Windows 11 language. Can’t find the Windows key on a new laptop? Here’s where it hides.

When your accuracy tanks, walk away. Tired hands make more errors. Rest up and try again later.

The numbers in the results

Five numbers and a graph. Here’s what each one tells you.

“Extra”: you typed more letters than the word had. “Missed”: you skipped letters, usually by hitting Space too early.

You’ll probably see your speed jump around on the graph. Some words are easy, some trip you up. That’s normal.

Want to check other kinds of speed? The reaction time test measures how fast you respond to a signal. The CPS test counts clicks per second. And the keyboard polling rate test checks your keyboard’s report speed. The mouse polling rate test does the same for the mouse. Everything else sits on our free tools page.

A practice plan that fits in a week

Reading your result

Records, resumes and phones

Compare phone results only with phone results. Same for run lengths: a 15 second score and a 120 second score aren’t the same thing.

Words on this page