Average Typing Speed: How Many WPM Is Normal, and What It Costs You Each Day

The average typing speed is about 52 words per minute. That number comes from a 2018 Aalto University and University of Cambridge study of 136 million keystrokes by 168,000 volunteers. Most computer users land between 30 and 60 words per minute. Above 65, you are well ahead of the crowd.

That is the answer. Now here is the part almost nobody covers: what that number is worth to you in minutes each day, and what to do if you do not like the total.

What the average typing speed actually is

The best modern figure is 52 words per minute. Researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge ran an online test and logged 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 people. You can read the Cambridge summary of the findings or the project page for the full paper. Results varied a lot around that middle. Most people sat between 30 and 60 words per minute, and a few cleared 120.

Before you compare yourself to it, look at how it was measured. Volunteers typed sentences that were shown to them on screen. That is copying, not writing. Copying is the faster of the two, because you are not choosing the words.

The sample matters as well. About two thirds of the people were in the United States, and more than 70 percent had taken a typing class at some point. People who volunteer for a typing test also tend to like typing. So treat 52 as a fair benchmark, not a law of nature.

You will also see 40 words per minute quoted all over the web. That number is older and it usually comes from test sites with a wider mix of visitors. Both figures can be true at once, because they count different people doing slightly different things.

One more note on history. The same Cambridge summary points out that trained typists in the 1970s and 1980s often hit 60 to 90 words per minute. Those were people paid to type all day on typewriters. The average words per minute typing figure today describes everyone with a laptop, which is why it sits lower.

What counts as a good typing speed, by task

Most pages answer "what is a good typing speed" with a job title. That is useful if you are applying for a data entry role. It is useless if you already have your job and just want to know whether your speed is holding you back.

Sort by task instead. Different work makes different demands on your hands, and some tasks are limited by your brain long before they are limited by your fingers.

Read the last column twice. For four of these five tasks, raw speed is not the bottleneck. Thinking is. That is why a jump from 45 to 60 words per minute feels smaller than you expect on short messages.

The exception is the long document row. Volume is where speed compounds. If your week has a lot of writing in it, the gap between 40 and 65 is real money.

Accuracy is the other half of the number

A speed figure with no error figure means nothing. Any honest look at average typing speed and accuracy has to report both, because one is bought with the other.

Tests use two numbers. Gross WPM counts every character you typed, divided by five, divided by the minutes you took. Net WPM takes gross WPM and subtracts your uncorrected errors. Net is the one that matters.

There is a third cost that neither number shows: the backspace. If you type at 70 gross and fix a word every line, you are paying twice for the same text. Once to type it wrong, once to type it again. A clean 50 can beat a messy 70 on finished work.

Here is the encouraging part. In the Aalto and Cambridge data, faster typists made fewer errors, not more. Speed and accuracy are not really a trade. Both come from the same thing, which is not having to look for the keys.

So when you read a test result, look for the accuracy percent next to it. Under 95 percent, the speed number is inflated. Most tests will show you both if you scroll.

This also explains why your score jumps around between sites. One test may stop the clock on errors, another may let you leave them in, and a third may feed you rare words. Compare your own scores over time on one test, and ignore the gap between sites.

What your typing speed costs you in a working day

This is the number the rest of the web skips. Words per minute is a rate. Rates only mean something once you multiply them by volume.

So count your volume. Here is a normal enough day for a desk worker who lives in a browser:

• 40 chat messages at 15 words each is 600 words.
• 12 email replies at 90 words each is 1,080 words.
• 6 ticket or handoff notes at 60 words each is 360 words.
• One document section at 400 words.

That adds up to 2,440 words a day. Now divide by speed:

• At 40 net WPM, that is 61 minutes of typing.
• At 52 net WPM, the average, that is 47 minutes.
• At 65 net WPM, that is 38 minutes.
• At 80 net WPM, that is 31 minutes.

The gap between 40 and 65 words per minute is 23 minutes a day. Over 220 working days that is roughly 84 hours, or about two working weeks a year.

Two honest warnings about that math. First, it counts keystrokes only. Your real time in those apps is much higher, because you stop to think, reread and switch windows. Second, nobody types at test speed all day, so treat these as a floor, not a promise.

The point is not the exact total. The point is that you can now swap in your own counts. Track your messages for one day, use your own word lengths, and the arithmetic gives you a personal number rather than a benchmark from a stranger.

Typing speed versus speaking rate

Now put the same job in front of your mouth instead of your hands. This comparison almost never appears on pages about typing, and it changes the shape of the problem.

These are general research figures on human speech, not measurements of any product. A widely quoted benchmark from the National Center for Voice and Speech puts everyday English conversation near 150 words per minute. A 2006 corpus study by Yuan, Liberman and Cieri, published at Interspeech, found a median much closer to 200 words per minute in recorded phone conversations. Reported speaking speed in words per minute varies with the method, but the range sits well above typing.

Even at the low end, speech is roughly two to three times the pace of the average typist. The ceiling on how fast you can get words out of your head is therefore closer to your talking speed than to your WPM.

Be careful with that idea, though. Speaking rate is not the same as finished text. When you talk you repeat yourself, change direction and trail off. Turning speech into something you would send still takes a read through and some edits.

Your own mileage will vary too. Some people think out loud easily. Others need to see the sentence before they trust it. The gap between speech and typing is real, but how much of it you can actually collect depends on the person and the task.

Why the average typing speed has been drifting

Typing benchmarks made more sense when typing was one clean activity. It is not one activity any more, and the numbers have been sliding around for a few reasons.

Autocomplete does part of the work. Suggested words, saved replies and address fields all mean fewer keystrokes per finished word. Your WPM in a test does not move, but your real output per keystroke has.

A lot of composing left the desk. Plenty of messages get written on a phone now. Thumb typing is a different skill with a different ceiling, so practice is spread across two very different keyboards.

Most work typing is editing, not writing. You paste something, move the cursor, delete half a line, retype a clause. A typing test measures a burst of clean transcription you almost never do at work.

The population changed. Older averages came from trained typists or from school studies. A keyboarding research summary collected by the QIAT community lists adults in keyboard heavy jobs at 35 to 50 words per minute, and admin staff at 50 to 65. Today's average is drawn from everyone with a laptop.

None of this means the number is useless. It means you should read it as a rough marker of a broad skill, not a score card.

Two ways to close the gap: type faster, or type less

Every ranking page gives the same advice here, which is practice more. That is half an answer. There are two levers, and the second one is bigger.

Lever one: how to type faster

Speed work does pay, within limits. If you still hunt for keys, learning to keep your eyes on the screen is the single biggest win available to you.

• Practice 10 to 15 minutes a day rather than an hour on Sunday.
• Slow down until you are accurate, then let speed follow. Chasing speed first bakes in errors.
• Do not worry about a formal course. The Aalto researchers found that self taught typists behaved much like class trained ones.
• Watch for rollover, where you press the next key before releasing the last. Fast typists in the study did this on 40 to 70 percent of keystrokes.
• Fix a keyboard that fights you. Mushy keys and a cramped layout cost real speed.

Be realistic about the payoff. Going from 45 to 60 words per minute takes weeks of steady practice, and by the arithmetic above it buys back somewhere near 15 minutes a day. Worth doing. Not life changing.

Lever two: type less in the first place

The second lever raises your ceiling instead of nudging your rate. It is about producing the same text with fewer keystrokes.

• Snippets. Map a short trigger to a phrase you type weekly. Ten snippets can cover a surprising share of a support inbox.
• Templates. Standing agendas, status updates and handoff notes rarely need to start empty.
• Reuse your own words. You have already written most of what you are about to write. Search your sent mail and your notes before you start again.
• Dictation. Speak the first draft instead of typing it, then edit. This is the lever that moves the ceiling, for the reason in the section above.

Dictation has honest costs. You need a room where talking is fine, you still reread what lands, and it fits first drafts better than careful edits. It is a good trade for long replies and a poor one for a two word answer.

If holding one key instead of typing the next reply sounds useful, VoiceSnap Pro is a Mac and Windows dictation app built around exactly that. Put the cursor in any text field, hold your chosen shortcut, and speak. Release the key and clean punctuated text appears at the cursor, with a copy kept as a searchable note. It is pre-launch, and early access on the waitlist is $39 one time.

How to measure your own typing speed properly

An average typing speed test gives you a baseline in two minutes. It will not tell you how fast you write. For that you have to measure your own text.

1. Get a clean baseline. Run any standard test three times and take the middle score. Write down the accuracy percent next to it, not just the speed.
2. Then time real work. Pick an email you actually need to send. Start a timer, write it, stop the timer.
3. Count and divide. Use the word count in your editor. Divide words by minutes and you have your real rate for that task.
4. Repeat across task types. Do it for a chat reply, a ticket note and a longer document. The three numbers will not match.
5. Compare the two. Your test score minus your real score is your thinking and editing overhead.

That last gap is the useful one. If your test score is 60 and your real rate on emails is 25, more typing drills are not your problem. Deciding what to say is.

Run the check again after a month of whatever you change. One measurement is a number. Two measurements are progress.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average typing speed in words per minute?

About 52 words per minute, based on a 2018 Aalto University and University of Cambridge study of 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 people. Most computer users fall between 30 and 60 words per minute. Older sources often quote 40, because they measured a different mix of people.

What is a good typing speed for an office job?

For most office work, 45 to 55 words per minute with high accuracy is comfortable. Roles built around typing all day, such as data entry or transcription, usually ask for 60 to 80. Below 35 you will feel the keyboard slowing you down on long documents.

Does typing speed vary by age?

Yes, mostly during school. A keyboarding research summary collected by the QIAT community puts fourth graders near 14 words per minute, seventh graders near 25, and teens at 35 to 45. In adults, average typing speed by age matters far less than hours spent at a keyboard.

Is 40 WPM slow?

No. It is a bit under the 52 word per minute average, but it is workable for most jobs. At 40 WPM a 100 word email takes about two and a half minutes of typing. If that feels slow, accuracy is usually a better place to start than raw speed.

How fast do people speak compared with how fast they type?

General research figures put ordinary English conversation somewhere between 150 and 200 words per minute, against a typing average near 52. So speech runs roughly two to three times faster. Speaking does not produce finished text though, so some of that lead goes back into editing.