What is a good typing speed?

Figures vary between sources, but around 40 WPM is often quoted as a typical adult speed, and 60 WPM or more is comfortably fast for office work. 60 WPM means 300 correct characters a minute, or five every second. Speed only counts if accuracy holds up: this tool shows accuracy in green from 97% upwards, and that is a sensible bar to clear before chasing speed.

Does fixing a mistake with backspace count against my score?

Not in the final accuracy, but it does cost you time. Speed and accuracy are worked out from the text as it stands, so a character you corrected counts as correct, while the seconds spent going back lower your WPM. Every wrong keystroke is still recorded, and the keys you missed most appear under Keys to work on when you finish.

Can I practise typing on my own text?

Yes. Choose Your own text, paste or type any passage and press Use this text; up to 3,000 characters are kept, and line breaks and repeated spaces become single spaces. Pasting into the typing area itself is blocked, so the result only reflects what you actually typed. The clock starts on your first keystroke and stops when you reach the end of the passage.

Typing Practice – Free Typing Test with Your Own Text

Practise touch typing on ready-made passages or on any text you paste in. Speed and accuracy update as you type.

Choose a text

Words per minute

100%

Accuracy

0.0s

Time

Mistakes

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. How vexingly quick daft zebras jump!

Click here, then start typing

How to get faster at typing

Accuracy comes first. Every mistake costs you the keystroke that made it plus the one that fixes it, so a run at 90% accuracy is slower than a calmer run at 99%. Aim to finish a passage without corrections before you try to push your speed at all.

Keep your fingers on the home row and return them there after every reach. Look at the screen, not at your hands — covering the keyboard for a few sessions is uncomfortable but it is the single fastest way to stop looking down. Short daily practice beats one long weekly session.

Words per minute is measured the standard way: every five characters you type correctly counts as one word, divided by the time elapsed. That keeps scores comparable between short and long words, and between languages.

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Words per minute never counts words — a word is defined as five characters

The convention dates from the typewriter era and has stuck: one word is five keystrokes, spaces included. So 300 correct characters in a minute is 60 WPM regardless of whether you typed sixty short words or thirty long ones. It is why the measure is comparable across languages and why German, with its long compounds, does not look artificially slow.

How it works

Counts correct characters against the passage and divides by five.
Divides that by elapsed minutes to give words per minute.
Reports accuracy separately, as correct characters over everything you typed.

WPM = (correct characters ÷ 5) ÷ elapsed minutes
accuracy = correct characters ÷ characters typed × 100

Worked example

Typing 300 correct characters in exactly one minute.

300 ÷ 5 = 60 notional words
60 ÷ 1 minute = 60 WPM
if you typed 320 characters and 300 matched, accuracy is 94%
the same 300 characters in 30 seconds would be 120 WPM
only correct characters count towards speed, so errors cost twice

Sixty words per minute from a measure that never saw a word. Speed and accuracy are separate numbers because they trade against each other, and only one of them is worth optimising first.

Reading the result

Errors are penalised twice over: a mistyped character does not count towards speed, and it drags accuracy down. That is deliberate — typing fast and wrong is slower overall once correction time is counted, so accuracy is the number to fix first.
Speed on familiar passages overstates real-world typing. Practice text you have seen before rehearses muscle memory rather than reading, so paste in something unfamiliar occasionally to see the honest figure.
Comparisons across sources are unreliable unless the same definition is used. Some tests count only whole correct words, others penalise errors differently, and a few use a different characters-per-word constant — a number from one site is not directly comparable with another.
Sustained speed matters more than a burst. A minute is short enough that a lucky run flatters the result; the figure that predicts real work is the one you can hold for ten minutes without tension in your hands.

Common questions

What is a good typing speed?: Figures vary between sources, but around 40 WPM is often quoted as a typical adult speed, and 60 WPM or more is comfortably fast for office work. 60 WPM means 300 correct characters a minute, or five every second. Speed only counts if accuracy holds up: this tool shows accuracy in green from 97% upwards, and that is a sensible bar to clear before chasing speed.
Does fixing a mistake with backspace count against my score?: Not in the final accuracy, but it does cost you time. Speed and accuracy are worked out from the text as it stands, so a character you corrected counts as correct, while the seconds spent going back lower your WPM. Every wrong keystroke is still recorded, and the keys you missed most appear under Keys to work on when you finish.
Can I practise typing on my own text?: Yes. Choose Your own text, paste or type any passage and press Use this text; up to 3,000 characters are kept, and line breaks and repeated spaces become single spaces. Pasting into the typing area itself is blocked, so the result only reflects what you actually typed. The clock starts on your first keystroke and stops when you reach the end of the passage.