How fast do you actually type — not on a good day, not counting the words you had to fix, but honestly, correctly, for one measured minute? This test answers with three original passages, a 60-second clock that starts the moment you do, and a score that separates raw speed from useful speed.
Net WPM, gross WPM and accuracy — the three numbers
Typing speed is measured in words per minute, where a “word” is defined as five characters — the standard convention that lets speeds be compared across different texts. Gross WPM counts everything you typed in the minute, right or wrong. Accuracy is the share of your characters that match the passage exactly, in the right position. Net WPM — the headline score, and the one employers mean — is gross WPM scaled by accuracy: it counts, in effect, only the typing that was correct. Type fast and sloppily and the two numbers drift apart; the gap between them is the honest price of your errors, and closing it is worth more speed than any burst of raw pace.
How the test runs
The timer starts on your first character and runs for exactly 60 seconds; the stats update live as you type, so you can watch accuracy fall when you rush and recover when you settle. At zero the typing box locks and the final score stands. Restart repeats the same passage — the fairest way to measure improvement, since the text is known — while New passage rotates to a different one of the three, which tests transfer rather than memory. All three passages are original texts written for this page, of similar length and difficulty, with ordinary words, names and punctuation.
What is a good score?
For context: the average adult types around 40 WPM net, most office work sits comfortably between 40 and 60, and professional typists sustain 70–90+ with accuracy above 95%. Hunt-and-peck typing typically lands at 20–30. But treat single tests as weather, not climate — one minute is a small sample, keyboards differ, and a score taken tired at midnight is not your speed. Take three tests on the same passage and average them; that number is yours, and it is the one worth beating next week.
Worked example
Type the whole first passage perfectly inside the minute and — since the passage is 197 characters, or 39.4 five-character “words” — you would score about 39.4 net WPM at 100% accuracy. The scoring math in miniature: 44 characters typed with no errors in 30 seconds is (44 ÷ 5) ÷ 0.5 min = 17.6 gross WPM, and at 100% accuracy the net score equals the gross — every error you add pulls the net figure below it by exactly its share.
How to use this tool
- Read the passage once before you start — the clock does not start until your first character.
- Click into the typing box and type the passage exactly, capitals and punctuation included.
- Watch the live stats if you like; at 60 seconds the box locks and the final score shows.
- Press Restart to retake the same passage and measure real improvement.
- Press New passage to rotate to a different text and test yourself on unseen words.
Getting faster without getting sloppier
The research-backed route is boring and effective: accuracy first, speed second. Type at the pace where you make almost no errors — even if that feels slow — and speed arrives on its own as the correct movements become automatic; practising errors at high speed just makes the errors automatic instead. Short daily sessions beat weekend marathons, looking at the screen rather than the keys forces the finger memory to form, and the backspace key is a score leak: every correction costs the characters deleted, the characters retyped, and the rhythm you were in. This test's net score is designed to reward exactly that discipline — it pays for correct characters only.