Typing Speed Calculator

Written byOleh Soloninupdated 25 September 2026

Characters typed

In how many minutes

Uncorrected wrong keystrokes

Count keystrokes, not words: both the accuracy and the net speed keep only the correct ones.

Result

Net speed, words a minute59.5
Gross speed, words a minute60
Characters a minute300
Accuracy, %99.2%
Level43—80 is the professional typist range
Characters an hour18,000
How it was worked out
1488 correct keystrokes ÷ 5 ÷ 5 min = 59.5 wpm; 1500 ÷ 5 ÷ 5 = 60 before the errors come off

A word in typing tests is five characters

Works out typing speed in characters and words a minute, adjusted for errors, and reports accuracy.

For text entry a word is standardised at five characters or keystrokes, spaces and punctuation included. "I run" counts as one word; "rhinoceros" and "let's talk" each count as two. Every typing test uses that convention, and without it results could not be compared at all.

The arithmetic follows: 1,500 characters in five minutes is 300 characters a minute and 60 words a minute before errors come off. If twelve keystrokes were wrong and left uncorrected, 1,488 remain correct, which gives a net speed of 59.5 words a minute at 99.2 percent accuracy.

Errors are counted in keystrokes here, the same unit the accuracy figure uses, so both numbers are built from the same correct characters.

How to use

Enter how many characters you typed.
Enter the time in minutes; fractions are fine.
Count the wrong keystrokes you left uncorrected and enter that number.
Read off net speed, gross speed, accuracy and characters an hour.

Speed in words and characters

Every row is a calculator run over five minutes of error-free typing. The anchor figures come from measurements: 19.0 words a minute is the average computer user composing text in a 1999 study, 32.5 transcribing; 27 and 37 are two-finger typists copying and working from memory; 43–80 is the professional range.

Calculator runs over five minutes of error-free typing.
Words a minute	Characters a minute	Characters an hour	What that pace is
19	95	5,700	average user composing text
27	135	8,100	two-finger typist copying
32.5	162	9,744	average user transcribing
43	215	12,900	bottom of the professional range
80	400	24,000	what time-critical typing jobs ask for
120	600	36,000	advanced typists

What to compare against

A 1999 study of average computer users found 32.5 words a minute for transcription and 19.0 for composition; split into fast, moderate and slow groups, the averages were 40, 35 and 23. Two-finger typists — hunt and peck — sustain about 37 words a minute on memorised text and 27 when copying, though they can burst well above that.

There is no single professional standard: figures depend on the test, its length and how errors are counted. Comparisons are fair only against a test run the same way. Sustained speeds over 300 have been recorded on fifteen-second tests with simple English words.

For comparison, the average typing speed on a mobile phone in 2019 was 36.2 words a minute with 2.3 percent uncorrected errors, and adults copying by hand manage about 68 letters a minute — roughly 13 words.

Stenotype sits in its own category: trained users enter text at up to 360 words a minute, and students typically reach 100–120 within six months. The Guinness record stands at 360 words a minute with 97.23 percent accuracy.

What this calculator shows

Gross and net speed in words a minute
Speed in characters a minute and an hour
Accuracy and where the result sits

What to keep in mind

A word is five characters, the convention every typing test uses.
Net speed counts only correct characters: the uncorrected wrong ones come off the total, and what is left is divided by five and by the minutes. Other tests charge more per error, a whole word for instance, so results are not always comparable between services.

FAQs

What is a good typing speed?

It depends on the job. Professional typists work at 43 to 80 words a minute, time-critical positions ask for 80 to 95, and the average computer user transcribes at 32.5. Anything past 120 is advanced.

What does wpm mean?

Words per minute, where a word is five characters or keystrokes including spaces and punctuation. It is a convention shared by every typing test so that results can be compared.

What is the difference between net and gross speed?

Gross counts every keystroke, net only the correct ones. At 1,500 characters in five minutes with twelve uncorrected errors, gross is 60 words a minute and net is 59.5.

How many characters a minute is average?

About 162 for transcription and 95 for composing text, from the 1999 measurements. The professional range starts at 215 characters a minute.

How do I measure my speed without a test?

Type a familiar passage against a stopwatch, take the character count with spaces from your word processor, and enter both here. Count the errors by comparing what you typed with the original, in characters: underlined words will not do, because one word can hold several errors and a typo that makes another real word is not underlined.

How fast do people type on a phone?

36.2 words a minute on average in 2019, with 2.3 percent uncorrected errors. The figure correlates strongly with age, English proficiency and how many fingers are used.

Why does accuracy matter more than raw speed?

Because corrections cost time twice: the wrong keystroke and the backspace that undoes it. At 99.2 percent accuracy the gap between gross and net speed is half a word a minute; at 90 percent it is six.

Worked example

1,500 characters in five minutes

Input: 1,500 characters, 5 minutes, 12 uncorrected wrong keystrokes

Output: 59.5 wpm net, 60 gross, 300 characters a minute, 99.2% accuracy

Note: That is 18,000 characters an hour — ten standard accounting pages of 1,800 characters, if the typing never stopped.

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