Single interval
Two fingers alternating on one button, each pressing while the other lifts. The fastest technique a human can hold cleanly, and the one that runs into the hardware first.
Clicks per second of the interval
The bars fill as you click. A flat profile means you held your rate; a falling one means the interval outlasted your finger.
The interval
Butterfly click test
Butterfly clicking splits the work: index and middle finger alternate on the same button so neither has to wait for its own recovery. Done well it reaches 600–950 CPM, and it stays cleaner under load than jitter because it spends coordination rather than tension.
The cost is rhythm. Two fingers at slightly different rates produce a run full of doubled and dropped presses, and the per-second chart shows it as alternating tall and short bars.
Every mouse switch ignores state changes for a few milliseconds after a press, to reject the electrical chatter of the contact settling. That guard window sets a hard floor on how close two accepted presses can be, and butterfly is the technique that reaches it.
Above roughly 900 CPM you are no longer measuring your hand: the longest-gap and per-click figures start describing the switch's debounce interval and reset time. That is the point where the calibration scale stops naming human tiers and reads instrument-limited instead.
Calibration
Where your reading sits on the CPM scale
Move the marker to read the scale, or run an interval and it snaps to your own result. Bands are set on a ten-second interval, the length most people can hold honestly.
| Band | Clicks per minute | Per second | What it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | 0–300 | 0.0–5.0 | An unhurried finger — one press at a time, no method behind it. |
| Steady | 300–450 | 5.0–7.5 | A relaxed wrist and a light switch. Most people land here on a first honest try. |
| Quick | 450–600 | 7.5–10.0 | Deliberate practice: the finger stays loaded and never fully leaves the switch. |
| Rapid | 600–780 | 10.0–13.0 | Jitter or a trained two-finger butterfly, plus a switch with a short reset. |
| Elite | 780–1000 | 13.0–16.7 | Butterfly at pace, held clean. Rare beyond a five-second interval. |
| Instrument-limited | 1000+ | 16.7+ | Past here you are usually reading the mouse, not the hand — drag clicking or switch chatter. |
Other click tests
The other intervals
The same clock and the same arithmetic, over a different span. A rate that holds across two intervals is a rate you actually have.
Background
Read the method
Longer entries on what this tool measures and where the number comes from.
Butterfly clicking reaches 600 to 950 CPM by alternating two fingers on one button, so each press gets a full cycle to reset. What it costs in rhythm.
Read the entryEvery mouse ignores its own switch for a few milliseconds after each press. When that guard fails your click rate rises — and your mouse is dying.
Read the entryQuestions
Asked of the chronometer
Six hundred to 950 CPM over ten seconds once the alternation is clean. The difference between a good butterfly run and a poor one is rhythm rather than speed — two fingers at slightly different rates drop more clicks than the second finger adds.
Above roughly 900 CPM, presses start landing inside the switch's debounce window and the mouse itself discards them. The longest-gap readout is where this shows up: a floor that will not go below a few milliseconds belongs to the hardware, not to your hand.
Generally, yes. It spends coordination rather than sustained tension, so it holds up better past thirty seconds and puts less continuous load on the forearm. It is still worth keeping the runs short.
Records
Click speed test world record
| Clicks per second | Clicks per minute | Clicks in 10 seconds | What produces it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 CPS | 300 CPM | 50 | Single clicking, no method |
| 7.5 CPS | 450 CPM | 75 | Top of the average click speed range |
| 10 CPS | 600 CPM | 100 | Practised single or early jitter |
| 12 CPS | 720 CPM | 120 | Jitter clicking at pace |
| 14 CPS | 840 CPM | 140 | Butterfly clicking, held clean |
| 16 CPS | 960 CPM | 160 | The practical human ceiling |
| 20 CPS | 1,200 CPM | 200 | Drag clicking or switch chatter |
| 50 CPS | 3,000 CPM | 500 | An auto-clicker, not a hand |
A clicks per minute test measures the average click rate you hold, the peak click frequency inside the interval, and the per-minute click consistency between them. Run the 10-second interval three times, read the mouse click speed score against the calibration bands, and take the middle result as your click rate.