Clicks Per Minute Click Chronometer Run the test

Keyboard

Spacebar Counter

Count spacebar presses against a millisecond clock. Holding the bar down does not work here: the operating system's key repeats are detected and thrown out, so the figure is your hand.

Presses per minute
0
Presses
0
Time
0.00s
Presses per second
0.00

Presses across the interval

Tap the bar — do not hold it. Held keys produce operating-system repeats, which are counted separately and excluded.

How to

How to run the spacebar speed test

  1. Pick an interval. Ten seconds is the standard; 5, 30 and 60 seconds are on the rail.
  2. Tap the spacebar. The clock starts on your first press. You do not need to click into anything first — the page listens for the bar directly.
  3. Keep tapping until the interval closes. Tap rather than hold: a held bar produces repeats, which are counted in their own readout and excluded from the rate.
  4. Read presses per minute. The count, elapsed time, per-second rate and the number of rejected repeats sit beside it.

The measurement

What a spacebar rate measures

Why key repeat has to be excluded

Hold any key and the operating system starts firing synthetic presses at a fixed rate — typically after a 250 to 500 ms delay, then 20 to 30 a second. Those are real keydown events as far as a browser is concerned, so a counter that accepts them will happily report several hundred presses from one held finger.

Every repeat carries a flag that separates it from a fresh press, and this tool rejects those and shows you how many it rejected. If the repeats readout is high, the number you are looking at came from your keyboard's firmware rather than from you.

Spacebar rates and where they come from

A trained hand taps a spacebar 300 to 420 times a minute using one thumb, and 500 to 700 alternating two thumbs or drumming several fingers. The bar is the largest key and the only one most people can strike from more than one angle, which is why it produces higher rates than any other key.

The switch matters less than on a mouse. A spacebar sits on a longer stem with a stabiliser bar, so its travel is slower than a mouse switch's but its debounce window is usually shorter — meaning the ceiling on a keyboard is set by your hand, not by the hardware.

The bench

Every tool on the bench

One instrument per input, all on the same clock. A rate is only comparable against the same tool and the same interval.

Background

Read the method

Longer entries on what this tool measures and where the number comes from.

Typing speed against click speed

WPM and CPM look like the same kind of number and are not. One measures a sequence you must get right, the other a repetition you cannot get wrong.

Read the entry

Why APM is not CPM

Actions per minute counts everything you do. Clicks per minute counts one thing you do. Conflating them is how 300 APM gets mistaken for slow hands.

Read the entry

Questions

Asked of the chronometer

What is a good spacebar score?

One thumb tapping cleanly runs 300 to 420 presses a minute. Alternating two thumbs, or drumming several fingers along the bar, reaches 500 to 700. Past that you are almost certainly counting key repeats rather than presses.

Why is my count lower than the number of presses I felt?

Because held-key repeats are thrown out. Check the repeats readout: if it is high, your finger stayed down and the operating system filled the gap for you. Tap and release rather than hold, and the two figures converge.

Does my keyboard type change the result?

Less than you would think. Switch travel varies by a couple of milliseconds between mechanical and membrane boards, while technique varies by hundreds. A spacebar's debounce window is usually shorter than a mouse switch's, so on a keyboard the ceiling is your hand.