Typing Speed Test
Typing speed test. Measure net and gross WPM, accuracy and consistency in 30s, 60s or 3 min — random words or classic quotes. Browser-only, no signup.
Typing Speed Test
How to use the Typing Speed Test
Pick a mode and duration
Words mode streams random words from the tool's 1,000-word list of common English words, over 30 seconds, 1 minute or 3 minutes. Quotes mode gives you one public-domain quote and times you to the end of it.
Start typing — the clock starts itself
The timer starts on your first keystroke, so read the opening words as long as you like. The current word is highlighted, and each letter turns green (right) or red (wrong) as you type. A skipped or doubled letter marks only that letter, not the rest of the word.
Commit each word with the space bar
Press space to lock in a word and move to the next. Backspace fixes mistakes in the current word only; once a word is committed it stays as you typed it. A wrong key you delete no longer hurts the word, but it still counts against your accuracy.
Read your results
When the clock runs out (or the quote is finished) you get net WPM, accuracy, gross WPM, keys right out of keys pressed, the words you left wrong, consistency and a per-second speed chart. Press Tab or hit Restart for a fresh set of words.
What a WPM score counts, and how this test scores mistakes
A typing test reports WPM, words per minute, but its "word" is a counting unit: any five characters, spaces included. Typewriting contests worked this way long before computers. The International Speed Contest Rules reported in Mrs Smith Clough's A Typewriting Catechism (5th edition, Pitman, 1930, p. 131) reckoned the gross strokes from the copy and "divided by five to secure the number of gross words". A 1917 Gregg textbook, Rational Typewriting (Rupert P. SoRelle, revising Ida McLenan Cutler, p. 99), estimated that ordinary words "average about 5.5 strokes each, counting the spaces". Counting strokes rather than words means a passage of short words and a passage of long ones are both measured in the same keystrokes.
Gross, net and accuracy on this test
Gross WPM is every character you typed and kept, right or wrong, spaces included, divided by five, per minute. Net WPM is gross WPM minus one word for each word you left wrong, per minute, and never below zero. One wrong, missing or extra letter makes a word wrong, and the word counts as one error however many letters are off; the 1930 contest rules also counted "One error only … in any one word", though they deducted ten words for it. Letters are matched to the word by alignment, so a skipped or doubled letter costs that letter alone. Accuracy is keystroke accuracy: keys pressed correctly out of all keys pressed, including the ones you deleted. A typo fixed with backspace therefore leaves net speed alone but still lowers accuracy.
"The average WPM value for participants is 51.56 (SD = 20.2)." The participants were about 168,000 volunteers who chose to take an online typing test, mainly younger people from the US.
Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, CHI 2018
Different tests, different rules
There is no single net-WPM formula, so a score from one test is not directly comparable with another. Monkeytype's own definition counts only "the correctly typed words (including spaces)". Intersteno, which runs international keyboarding contests, scores characters a minute, deducts 50 penalty points for each error and now counts "one mistake per word". Research papers such as Dhakal et al. (2018) report speed from the transcribed text and give errors as a separate rate. The US Office of Personnel Management sets a pass mark instead of a formula: "40 words per minute typing speed" for its clerk-typist posts, on "a 5 minute sample with three or fewer errors".
Comparing your own runs
Text changes the score. This test's 1,000-word list averages about 6.2 keystrokes a word, spaces included, and its quotes about 5.2, so the same finger speed produces fewer real words a minute in Words mode. Compare a result only with earlier runs of the same mode and duration, and look at the trend over several runs rather than one. The consistency figure and the per-second chart show whether you type steadily or in bursts. Everything runs locally in your browser, so retest as often as you like; nothing you type is recorded.
A 'word' is five keystrokes, spaces included
In a typing test one "word" is any five characters, spaces included. The International Speed Contest Rules reported in a 1930 typewriting manual counted the same way: the gross strokes were "divided by five" to give gross words (Mrs Smith Clough, A Typewriting Catechism, 5th ed., Pitman, 1930, p. 131).
Those 1930 contest rules deducted ten words for each error and counted "One error only … in any one word". This test also counts at most one error per word, but takes off one word a minute for it, not ten.
A 1917 typewriting textbook estimated that "Words in ordinary matter will average about 5.5 strokes each, counting the spaces" (Rupert P. SoRelle, revising Ida McLenan Cutler, Rational Typewriting, Gregg, 1916–1917, p. 99). Real words run longer than the five-stroke unit once the space is counted.
This test's two modes use different text. Its 1,000-word list averages about 6.2 keystrokes a word, spaces included, because every word on it is equally likely to come up; its 40 quotes average about 5.2. The same keystroke rate is therefore fewer real words a minute in Words mode.
Intersteno, the international federation that runs keyboarding contests, scores in characters a minute, not words. Its 2026 internet-contest rules deduct 50 penalty points for each error and say mistakes are now counted as "one mistake per word".
In a study of about 168,000 volunteers who took an online typing test, the average speed was 51.56 WPM (SD 20.2). The volunteers chose to take part and were mainly younger people from the US, so this is the average of that sample, not of all typists (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018).
A 2019 study of 37,370 volunteers typing on their own smartphones measured an average of 36.2 WPM with 2.3% uncorrected errors, about 15 WPM slower than the desktop sample of the 2018 study (Palin et al., MobileHCI 2019).
The US Office of Personnel Management asks for "40 words per minute typing speed" for Clerk-Typist and Office Automation posts, measured on "a 5 minute sample with three or fewer errors". That is a pass mark with an error cap, not a subtraction.
Every word left wrong here costs one word a minute of net speed. In a one-minute test, four wrong words take a gross 60 WPM down to a net 56.
If the clock starts on the first keystroke, the first character took no measured time, so speed is counted over all characters but one. This test does that, as York University's I. Scott MacKenzie recommends; on an 82-character quote the difference is about 1%.
Frequently Asked Questions
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WPM is words per minute, where one "word" is any five typed characters, spaces included. So the phrase "typing speed test" (17 characters) counts as 3.4 words however you split it. Typewriting contests counted strokes and divided by five long before computers; a 1930 manual reports the contest rules doing exactly that.
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Gross WPM is every character you typed and kept, right or wrong, spaces included, divided by five, per minute. Net WPM is gross WPM minus one word for each word you left wrong, per minute, and it never goes below 0. A word with one wrong, missing or extra letter is one error, and so is a word skipped with an early space. Other tests use other rules: Monkeytype counts only the characters of correctly typed words, and Intersteno scores characters with 50 penalty points per error, so scores from different tests are not directly comparable.
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Accuracy is keystroke accuracy: the keys you pressed correctly divided by all the keys you pressed, times 100, rounded down. It includes wrong keys you later deleted with backspace, so a corrected typo still lowers it; backspace itself is not counted. Keys are judged by lining up what you typed with the word, so each slip is one wrong key, not a run of them: a wrong letter, the key pressed in place of a skipped letter, or the extra key of a doubled one. A space is wrong only when it ends a word early, leaving letters untyped.
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The number of words you left wrong when the test ended, including the word you were typing if it already had a mistake. It is the number net WPM subtracts. A wrong key you fixed before pressing space is not in it; it shows up in accuracy instead.
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There is no single standard. In a large online study of about 168,000 volunteers, the average was 51.56 WPM, from a self-selected and mostly young US sample (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018). The US Office of Personnel Management asks for 40 WPM on a five-minute sample with three or fewer errors for its clerk-typist posts. The rating on the result card is this tool's own scale, not a population figure.
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Consistency compares the variation of your per-second speed with your average speed: 100 × (1 − standard deviation ÷ mean), never below 0. 100% would be perfectly even; a low figure means you type in bursts with stalls in between.
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They measure different things. Words mode streams lowercase words from the tool's 1,000-word list, which average about 6.2 keystrokes a word with the space. Quotes mode adds capitals and punctuation and its words are shorter, about 5.2 keystrokes. Compare a result only with earlier runs of the same mode.
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The timer starts the instant you press your first key, so time spent reading beforehand costs nothing; speed is counted over every character but the first for that reason. Press Tab or click Restart at any point for a fresh run with new words. In Quotes mode there is no countdown: the clock counts up until you finish the quote.
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Yes, backspace works freely within the current word. Once you commit a word with the space bar it is locked in. A fixed mistake no longer costs net speed, but the wrong key still counts against accuracy.
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No. The whole test runs locally in your browser: the word list and quotes ship with the page, timing and scoring happen on your device, and no keystroke is ever sent to a server or stored anywhere. Closing the page clears everything.
Method & sources
What this tool implements
- A word is any five characters, spaces included, the unit typewriting contests used: the International Speed Contest Rules reported in 1930 divide the gross strokes "by five". Other tests score differently (Intersteno in characters a minute, Monkeytype on correctly typed words only), so scores from different tests are not directly comparable.
- Net WPM subtracts one word a minute for each word left wrong and counts at most one error per word, as the 1930 contest rules ("One error only is counted in any one word") and Intersteno's 2026 rules ("one mistake per word") do. They deduct ten words and 50 points per error; this test deducts one word a minute.
- Accuracy is keystroke accuracy and includes errors corrected with backspace. A key is wrong only when it adds to the word's edit distance, so each slip (a wrong, skipped or doubled letter, or a space that ends a word early) costs one key.
- Speed counts all characters but one because the clock starts on the first keystroke, and the last word of a quote carries no commit space. Without both, a perfectly typed quote read 1.1–2.5% fast.
- The corpus is vendored and fixed. The 1,000-word list averages about 6.2 keystrokes a word with the space and the 40 quotes about 5.2, so a Words-mode score and a Quotes-mode score are not comparable with each other.
- Everything runs in the browser; no keystroke leaves the device.
Sources
- Mrs Smith Clough, A Typewriting Catechism, 5th ed., Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, London, 1930, p. 131 — the International Speed Contest Rules: gross strokes "divided by five", ten words deducted per error, one error per word: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.116964
- Rupert P. SoRelle, revising Ida McLenan Cutler, Rational Typewriting, rev. ed., Gregg Publishing Co., 1916–1917, p. 99 — "Words in ordinary matter will average about 5.5 strokes each, counting the spaces": https://archive.org/details/rationaltypewrit0000vari
- I. Scott MacKenzie, "Calculating text entry speed", York University — five characters per word, and one character fewer when timing starts at the first character: https://www.yorku.ca/mack/RN-TextEntrySpeed.html
- Intersteno, Rules, International keyboarding competition by Internet 2026 — characters per minute, 50 penalty points per error, one mistake per word: https://www.intersteno.org/docs/2026/Rules_Internet_Contest_2026-…
- Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson & Oulasvirta, "Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes", CHI 2018 — average 51.56 WPM (SD 20.2) in a self-selected online sample: https://userinterfaces.aalto.fi/136Mkeystrokes/resources/chi-18-a…
- Palin et al., MobileHCI 2019 — 37,370 volunteers on smartphones, average 36.2 WPM with 2.3% uncorrected errors: https://www.pokristensson.com/pubs/PalinEtAlMobileHCI2019.pdf
- US Office of Personnel Management, Group Coverage Qualification Standard for Clerical and Administrative Support Positions — 40 words per minute on a 5-minute sample with three or fewer errors: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualific…
What can make this go out of date
- None at runtime. The corpus ships with the page.
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.