Typing Speed Test
Test your typing speed and accuracy in words per minute with a timed test, and see how the standard WPM figure is actually calculated.
Click the box above and start typing…
Your results
A wrong letter costs one character. A missing letter costs the rest of the test.
The scoring here walks both strings together and asks, at each position, whether the character you typed matches the character that was meant to be there. That is the standard method, and it is exactly right for the mistake everyone expects to make — hitting the wrong key. A substitution leaves everything else lined up, so it costs precisely one character no matter where it happens:
| Wrong letter at | Correct | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|
| position 0 | 70 of 71 | 98.6% |
| position 10 | 70 of 71 | 98.6% |
| position 35 | 70 of 71 | 98.6% |
| position 60 | 70 of 71 | 98.6% |
Now drop a letter instead. Every character after that point is compared against the wrong target, so the text reads perfectly to a person and scores near zero to the machine:
| Dropped letter at | Correct | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|
| position 0 | 1 of 70 | 1.4% |
| position 10 | 11 of 70 | 15.7% |
| position 35 | 36 of 70 | 51.4% |
| position 60 | 60 of 70 | 85.7% |
Averaged over all 70 positions in this 71-character passage, one dropped character leaves you at 50.3%. An extra letter does the same thing. Accuracy is telling you where the mistake was, not what it was.
Three mistakes, one edit each, three very different scores
The comparison that settles it. All three of these attempts are a single edit away from perfect — one substitution, one deletion, one insertion — and an alignment-based measure rates them identically:
| Mistake | Edits from perfect | Scored here |
|---|---|---|
| a wrong letter | 1 | 98.6% |
| a dropped letter | 1 | 15.7% |
| an extra letter | 1 | 15.3% |
This is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight, and it is defensible. The text is marked right or wrong as you type, so a dropped letter shows up immediately as a wall of red — the score matches what the display already told you. A kinder, alignment-based measure would quietly forgive losing your place, which on a typing test is the thing you most want to know about.
The practical consequence is worth acting on: if you drop a letter early, restart. Finishing that run tells you nothing, because the number is already fixed by where the slip happened rather than by anything you do next.
And the three numbers on the results card are one number
Words per minute, raw words per minute and accuracy look like three measurements. They are not. A "word" is 5 characters by convention, so raw speed counts everything you typed and net speed counts only what landed in the right place — which means accuracy is just the ratio between them:
| Value | |
|---|---|
| raw words per minute | 32.0 |
| accuracy | 97.5% |
| raw x accuracy | 31.2 |
| net words per minute | 31.2 |
Exactly, always, for every attempt and every duration. Two of the three determine the third, so there is only one independent speed here — worth knowing before you compare a score with somebody else's, because quoting raw and quoting net are quoting the same run.
How to use
- Pick a test length and start typing.
- Type the shown text as accurately as you can.
- Read your gross and net words per minute at the end.
- Prioritise accuracy over speed while practising.
Frequently asked questions
How is words per minute calculated?
A word is defined as five characters including spaces, not an actual word — so WPM is the character count divided by five, divided by the minutes elapsed. The fixed definition exists so that typing a passage of short words is not scored more generously than a passage of long ones.
What is a good typing speed?
Around 40 WPM is average for an adult who types regularly. Sixty to seventy is comfortably fast and typical of people who type for a living. Above 100 is genuinely quick, and competitive typists exceed 150. Accuracy matters more than raw speed for almost every real task.
What is the difference between gross and net WPM?
Gross counts everything you typed; net subtracts a penalty for errors. Net is the more meaningful number, since text riddled with mistakes has to be corrected afterwards, and correcting is slower than typing carefully in the first place.
Should I practise for speed or accuracy?
Accuracy first, consistently. Speed follows from accurate muscle memory, whereas practising fast and sloppy trains the errors in. The standard advice is to slow down to whatever pace keeps you above about 97 per cent accurate, then let speed rise on its own.
Does touch typing actually help?
Substantially, for sustained work. Typing without looking frees your attention for what you are writing rather than where the keys are, and it removes the constant refocusing between keyboard and screen. Learning it costs a few frustrating weeks and pays back indefinitely.
Is a different keyboard layout worth switching to?
Probably not for most people. Dvorak and Colemak reduce finger travel and are genuinely more efficient in theory, but the measured speed gain over a competent QWERTY typist is modest, and the switching cost is weeks of near-illiteracy plus permanent friction on every machine that is not yours.
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