Typing · 25-word sprint
Check Typing Speed
To check typing speed, type the 25 words below. The clock starts on your first keystroke and stops on the last character, then reports net WPM, characters per minute and accuracy immediately. It takes most people between twenty and forty seconds. Switch to the one-minute mode when you need a figure that would stand up on a job application.
Elapsed
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Net WPM
0.0
Accuracy
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Errors
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0 correct
Click or tap here and start typing — the clock starts with your first keystroke
Ready — 25 words. Finish the passage to stop the clock.
Four things that distort a typing speed check
A typing speed reading is a measurement of you, your keyboard, the passage and the day. These are the four factors that move it most, roughly in order of size.
- Test length. Sprints flatter. A 25-word run reads 5 to 10 WPM above a one-minute run for the same typist, and a five-minute run reads 5 to 10 below it, because sustaining accuracy is a different skill from producing burst speed.
- Prompt vocabulary. The 200 most frequent English words are almost all short and high-frequency bigrams your fingers already know. Add punctuation, capitals and proper nouns and the same typist loses 10 to 20 WPM. Always check what a test is feeding you before comparing scores.
- Gross versus net. Some tests report characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes and call it WPM. That ignores errors entirely. Two tests can differ by 15 points purely on this definition.
- Hardware. Mechanical to laptop is typically 5 to 10 WPM. Laptop to phone is 20 to 30. A wireless keyboard on a low polling rate can drop keystrokes outright at speed, which shows up as an accuracy problem you did not cause.
How to check your typing speed properly
- 01
Click the panel and start typing
There is no countdown. The clock starts on your first keystroke, so nothing is wasted on reaction time.
- 02
Type the passage to the end
Twenty-five words. The test stops itself on the final character — no need to press anything.
- 03
Read net WPM, not gross
Net WPM subtracts your uncorrected errors. It is the number employers mean and the one this page reports first.
- 04
Repeat three times and take the middle
Single runs vary by 5 to 8 WPM. The median of three is a far better description of your actual speed than your best of three.
Interpreting the result
| Readout | Formula | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Net WPM | (chars ÷ 5 − errors) ÷ minutes | The figure to quote. Penalizes uncorrected mistakes at one word each. |
| Gross WPM | (chars ÷ 5) ÷ minutes | Raw finger speed, mistakes ignored. Useful only for tracking your own progress. |
| CPM | chars ÷ minutes | Characters per minute. Preferred in some European and East Asian benchmarks where the five-character word convention does not fit the language. |
| Accuracy | correct ÷ typed × 100 | Below about 95% the fastest way to raise net WPM is to slow down, not speed up. |
Want the full instrument with a per-key error heatmap and every length from ten words to five minutes? Use the typing test. Want the formula walked through line by line? That is the words per minute typing test. Want to know where your number sits against everyone else? See average typing speed by percentile.
Questions about checking typing speed
How do I check my typing speed?
Type the words shown until the passage ends. The clock starts on your first keystroke and stops on the last character, then the panel reports net WPM, characters per minute and accuracy. Nothing to install, no account, and no countdown to sit through.
How long does it take to check typing speed?
The 25-word sprint on this page takes 20 to 40 seconds for most people. That is enough for a usable reading but not a definitive one — burst speed runs high. For a figure you would put on an application, run the one-minute mode at least three times and take the middle result.
Why does my typing speed change every time I check it?
Because it genuinely does vary. Time of day, keyboard, how familiar the words are and whether you are warmed up all move the number by several WPM. Run-to-run variation of 5 to 8 WPM is normal; that is why the honest reading is the median of several runs, not your best one.
Is a 25-word test as accurate as a 1-minute test?
No, and it is not trying to be. A short sprint measures peak burst speed and typically reads 5 to 10 WPM above a one-minute run, because nobody has time to lose concentration. Use it to check quickly; use the one-minute test when the number has to mean something.
Does the keyboard change my typing speed?
Substantially. Most people lose 5 to 10 WPM moving from a full mechanical board to a low-travel laptop keyboard, and 20 to 30 WPM moving to a phone touchscreen. Compare like with like: a phone score and a desktop score are not the same measurement.
Does this test store my typing?
No. Everything runs in the browser. Your keystrokes are never sent anywhere, and the only thing written to your device is the personal best in localStorage — which you can clear at any time by clearing site data.
Other instruments on this bench
- typing testTimed typing test with live caret, per-key error heatmap and net WPM computed from your own character counts.net WPM · accuracy %
- words per minute typing testThe WPM formula written out with your numbers substituted in, plus what each score means by profession.gross WPM · net WPM
- average typing speed by percentileThe full distribution table — where 40 WPM actually sits, and what the 25th, 50th, 75th and 95th percentiles are.your percentile
- reaction time testFive trials on performance.now() with false-start detection, then median, mean and best against published norms.median ms · percentile
Testing the hardware rather than the person? device tests — scroll, touch, refresh rate and input latency lives on a sister site. And if you want to see through someone else’s eyes rather than screen your own, use the simulate how an image looks to a protan, deutan or tritan viewer.