How the typing test works
Pick a time limit or a number of words, and the kind of text. The timer starts on your first keystroke, or when a 3-2-1 countdown reaches Go. A time test ends exactly when the time runs out; a words test ends the moment you type the last letter of the last word correctly, or press space after it.
Space moves on to the next word. Backspace fixes the word you're on, and on an empty word it steps back into the previous one, but only if that word has a mistake in it: finished, correct words stay finished. Ctrl, Alt or Cmd with Backspace clears the whole word. Escape starts over with new text at any time.
How words per minute are calculated
Typing speed counts characters, not words, because words differ in length. By a long-standing convention, every 5 characters, spaces included, count as one word. Typing 250 characters in a minute is 50 words per minute, whether those were short words or long ones.
Net speed is your score. It counts what is left in the text when the test ends: every letter that matches the text in its place, plus one space for each word you finished. A mistake you corrected costs only the time it took to fix; one you left in simply doesn't count. Raw speed counts every character you typed, mistakes, corrections and spaces included, so it shows how fast your fingers moved. The gap between the two is what mistakes cost you.
A time test divides by the full length of the test. A words test divides by the time from the start to the keystroke that finished the last word. The chart in your results shows raw speed in each second and net speed from the start up to that second.
How accuracy is counted
Accuracy is the share of your keystrokes that were right at the moment you typed them. A wrong letter counts against you even if you go back and fix it, because it still had to be typed and deleted. Letters typed past the end of a word are wrong, and so is a space pressed before a word is complete. Backspace itself is neither right nor wrong.
Consistency shows how steady your speed was: 100% means the same raw speed every second. The results also list the keys you missed most, and what you pressed instead, which often points at a finger that reaches for the wrong key.
Timed from the keystroke
Each keystroke is timed with the timestamp your system gave the key press, not the moment the page got round to handling it, so a busy moment on the page never slows your score. The counters update once per display frame, separately from the typing. Switching tabs or windows during a test throws the attempt away: browsers pause background pages, and keys meant for another window never reach this one.
Physical and on-screen keyboards
The test works with any keyboard, including the on-screen keyboard on phones and tablets. It reads what your keyboard actually enters rather than which key was pressed, so swipe typing and suggestions work, and a word your keyboard corrects counts as the letters it changed. Keyboards that compose text, such as input methods for other scripts and many phone keyboards, hand over a whole word at once, so the letters in it share one timestamp. Curly quotes and apostrophes from phone keyboards count as the straight ones in the text.
Pasting and dropping text are turned off: the test measures typing.
Where the words come from
The common words test draws from a list of 246 of the most frequently used English words, compiled for this site. The sentences test uses 50 sentences written for it. The punctuation test takes common words and adds capitals, commas, periods, question and exclamation marks, contractions, quotes, brackets, hyphens, colons and semicolons; the numbers test mixes in years, decimals, times, percentages, prices and grouped digits. Everything is plain ASCII, so every character is on every keyboard.
Each text is generated from a random seed. A shared result link carries its seed, so whoever opens it types exactly the same words.
Questions
What is a good typing speed?
Many people who type without looking at the keyboard land somewhere between 40 and 60 words per minute on common words. Above 70 is fast, and above 100 puts you among very quick typists. Punctuation, capitals and numbers slow almost everyone down, so compare scores on the same kind of text and the same test length.
What is the difference between net and raw WPM?
Raw WPM counts every character you typed, including mistakes you later deleted, so it measures how fast your fingers moved. Net WPM counts only what is right in the final text: letters in the right place plus the space after each finished word. Net is your score. A large gap between the two means mistakes, and the time spent fixing them, are costing you speed.
How is accuracy calculated?
Accuracy is the percentage of keystrokes that were correct when you pressed them. Fixing a mistake afterwards does not undo it, because the wrong key was still pressed. Letters typed past the end of a word and a space pressed before a word is complete both count as wrong. Backspace is not counted either way.
Why is pasting blocked?
The test measures how fast you type. Pasted or dropped text would arrive all at once with no typing behind it, so paste, drop and similar shortcuts are ignored and a short message says so.
Does it work on a phone with autocorrect and swipe typing?
Yes. The test reads what your keyboard enters rather than which keys were pressed, so on-screen keyboards, suggestions and swipe typing all work. If your keyboard corrects a word, the letters it changed count as deletions and new letters. Keyboards that compose a whole word before handing it over give its letters one shared timestamp, which can make the per-second chart look bursty but barely changes the score.
Why do short tests give such different scores?
In a 15 second test a single hard word, a slow start or one mistake is a large share of the whole run. Longer tests average those moments out, so 60 second tests give steadier numbers, and 120 seconds shows how well you keep your pace. Compare results at the same length and with the same kind of text.
Are my results stored anywhere?
Only in your browser. Your personal best and recent history for each combination of settings stay in local storage on this device, and nothing is sent to a server. Clearing your site data removes them.