What is a good typing speed?
A 2018 study of 168,000 volunteers who took an online typing test found an average of about 52 words per minute, with most people within 20 WPM either side. Words per minute counts five characters as one word, so 52 WPM is 260 characters a minute. Accuracy matters as much as speed: aim for 95% or better.
How to type faster
- Learn touch typing. Rest your fingers on the home row (ASDF and JKL;), with each finger covering its own keys. The small bumps on F and J let you find the row without looking.
- Keep your eyes on the screen. Looking down at the keys is the biggest brake on speed.
- Slow down to get accurate. Correcting mistakes costs more time than typing a little slower. Speed follows once your fingers know the way.
- Practise little and often. Ten or fifteen minutes a day does more than an hour once a week.
Measure your progress with the Typing Speed Test; it keeps your best score. If a key seems to miss presses, check it with the Keyboard Test.
Click speed and reaction time
- Most people manage 5 to 7 clicks a second over 10 seconds on the Click Speed Test.
- The median on a click-when-it-turns-green test like our Reaction Time Test is around 270 milliseconds. Your screen and mouse add a little delay, so compare results on the same device.
For mouse speed and accuracy together, try the Aim Trainer.