Typing Speed Test
Type the passage below as accurately and quickly as you can — your words-per-minute and accuracy are calculated the moment you finish.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog while the sun sets behind the distant hills, painting the sky in shades of orange and violet.
Timer starts on your first keystroke.
Estimate only, for general information.
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How this test works
The timer starts the instant you type your first character and stops the moment you reach the end of the passage. Words per minute (WPM) is calculated as correctly typed characters ÷ 5, divided by the minutes elapsed — the standard formula used by most typing tests, since the average English word is about 5 characters long.
Accuracy is the percentage of characters you typed that matched the passage exactly. Try a few passages — typing tests naturally vary run to run, so your best result over several attempts is a better read on your speed than any single one.
Typing speed is a genuinely useful thing to know: it's a common screening question in Australian data entry, admin, transcription and customer service roles, and a reasonable proxy for how quickly you can get thoughts onto a page when studying or writing for work. Most people who type daily for work sit somewhere in the 40–70 WPM range; the difference between that and 90+ WPM mostly comes down to touch-typing technique — not looking at the keyboard — rather than raw hand speed.
If your result feels lower than expected, accuracy is usually the bigger lever than raw speed: correcting mistakes costs far more time than typing carefully in the first place, since every backspace and retype adds to your elapsed time without adding to your correct character count. Slowing down slightly and typing cleanly through punctuation and capital letters — rather than rushing and fixing errors afterwards — tends to raise WPM more reliably than trying to type faster outright.
Frequently asked questions
- What does WPM mean?
- Words per minute — the standard way typing speed is measured. It's calculated as the number of correctly typed characters divided by 5 (the average word length), divided by the time taken in minutes.
- What's a good typing speed?
- Average typing speed is around 35-45 WPM. 60+ WPM is considered fast, and professional typists often reach 80-100+ WPM. Accuracy matters as much as speed — a fast, error-filled result isn't actually faster once corrections are counted.
- Why does the timer only start when I begin typing?
- So you can read the passage first without it counting against your time — the clock starts on your very first keystroke, not when the page loads.
- How is accuracy calculated?
- Accuracy is the percentage of characters in the passage you typed correctly on your first pass, out of the total characters typed. A single mistyped letter counts against accuracy even if you go back and correct it, since the test measures how cleanly you typed in real time, not just the final on-screen text.
- Does typing on a phone or tablet give an accurate WPM?
- You can take the test on any device, but WPM results from touchscreen typing are generally slower than physical keyboard typing and aren't directly comparable — for tracking your typing speed over time, stick to one input method (ideally a physical keyboard) for consistent results.
- Why do my results vary between attempts?
- Typing speed naturally fluctuates with the specific passage (word length, punctuation, unfamiliar words), how warmed up your hands are, and normal moment-to-moment variation. Take the test a few times and look at your average or best result over several passages rather than judging yourself on a single run.