Average typing speed
The average typist manages about 52 words per minute. Enter your speed to see how many people you'd out-type.
Typing speed bands
| WPM | Level | Share of typists |
|---|---|---|
| 0–30 | Beginner | 10.7% |
| 31–50 | Below average | 43.6% |
| 51–70 | Above average | 29.8% |
| 71–90 | Fast | 11.1% |
| 91–120 | Very fast | 4% |
| 121+ | Elite | 0.8% |
What is the average typing speed?
The best large-scale figure comes from researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge, who analysed 136 million keystrokes from 168,960 volunteers in an online typing study published at CHI 2018. The average was 51.56 words per minute, with a standard deviation of 20.2 WPM — so most people type somewhere between roughly 30 and 70 WPM. The fastest participants reached 120 WPM or more.
Two caveats: the volunteers chose to take a typing test, so they were probably a little more keyboard-confident than the population as a whole, and most of them were teenagers and young adults typing English sentences. Treat the percentile as a good estimate rather than an exact ranking.
How the percentile is calculated
The study reports that the speed distribution is slightly skewed to the right — there's a long tail of very fast typists. We model it with a log-normal curve that has exactly the study's mean and standard deviation, and read your percentile off that curve. On it the median typist is at about 48 WPM, 60 WPM beats about 72% of people, and 100 WPM beats about 97%.
Your result on TypeWPM uses the same definition the study used: one word is five characters, spaces included, and only correctly typed characters count.
What makes people faster
In the same study, fast typists used more fingers (8.4 on average versus 5.3 for slow typists), made fewer errors and often pressed the next key before releasing the previous one — so-called rollover. People who reported using 9–10 fingers, 47.6% of participants, were clearly faster on average. That's why the quickest route above 60 WPM is learning to touch type: the free lessons on this site start from the home row.
Average typing speed — frequently asked questions
Is 40 WPM a good typing speed?
40 WPM is a little below the average of about 52 WPM, but it's perfectly workable for everyday use. Most people who learn touch typing pass 50–60 WPM within a few weeks of regular practice.
Is 60 WPM good?
Yes. 60 WPM is comfortably above average — faster than about 72% of typists — and enough for almost any office job.
Is 100 WPM fast?
Very. 100 WPM puts you ahead of about 97% of typists. Speeds of 120 WPM and more are rare even among people who type all day.
Does accuracy matter as much as speed?
More, really. The study found that faster typists also make fewer errors. Every mistake costs a correction, so aiming for 95%+ accuracy first is the fastest way to a higher WPM.
More free tools
- WPM to CPM converter — Convert between WPM, CPM, keystrokes per hour and characters per second.
- Typing time calculator — Estimate how long any text takes to type at your WPM.
- Check your speed with the typing speed test
- Learn 10-finger typing with the touch typing lessons