Keyboard
Words per minute against a millisecond clock, over fifteen, thirty or sixty seconds. Every character is judged the moment you type it, so going back to fix a letter does not erase the mistake.
Start typing to begin — the clock starts on your first key.
How to
How to run the typing test
The measurement
How WPM is calculated
WPM is not counted in real words, because word length varies and two tests would never be comparable. The standard defines a word as five characters including the space, so gross WPM is characters divided by five divided by minutes.
Net WPM subtracts uncorrected errors from that. It is the figure worth quoting, because gross WPM alone can be inflated by typing quickly and badly — a run of nonsense at speed scores well on gross and poorly on net.
Many typing tests let you backspace over a mistake and score as though it never happened, which measures editing rather than typing. Here each character is scored once, at the moment it is entered, and correcting it afterwards fixes the word but not the accuracy figure.
Typing speed and click speed share a limit worth noting: both are bounded by how fast a finger can leave and return to a key or switch. Where they differ is coordination — typing spreads the work across eight fingers, which is why WPM figures scale much higher than any single-button click rate.
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.
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 entryActions 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 entryQuestions
Asked of the chronometer
Around 40 WPM is an ordinary adult typing rate, 60 to 80 is proficient touch typing, and above 100 means trained. Those are net figures — the number after uncorrected errors have been taken off.
Thirty seconds is the standard and the one to quote. Fifteen is a sprint that flatters you, and sixty is where concentration starts to slip and the rate drops a few points. As with the click tests, a speed that holds across two durations is the one you actually have.
You can, but the published benchmarks assume touch typing, so a looked-at result is not comparable to them. If you are learning, the honest path is to accept a much lower number for a few weeks rather than to keep scoring a technique that has a low ceiling.