Typing · 15 s
Fifteen Second Typing Test
Fifteen seconds. Quick enough to run again immediately.
Start typing. The timer starts on your first keystroke.
boy have an letter America call so some no up away right into part how land about there long write time ask try went its find we came them for had like tell no went only large way just know right how up see more be he men back how an what an them large how even end then much she i in their these give our home so mother all water had kind thing this boy right
Click here or start typing
What this measures
Fifteen seconds is the warm-up length. It is too short to measure endurance and too short for a bad patch to average out, but it is exactly right for running attempt after attempt while your hands wake up.
Expect this to read a few WPM higher than your sixty-second score. Nobody has slowed down yet at fifteen seconds, and a single lucky burst carries more weight over a short window.
If you want a number to quote, use the sixty-second test. If you want to practise, use this one.
What is a good typing test score
| Band | Score | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1% | ≥ 120 WPM | 99th |
| Top 5% | ≥ 95 WPM | 95th |
| Top 15% | ≥ 80 WPM | 85th |
| Top 30% | ≥ 65 WPM | 70th |
| Median | ≥ 52 WPM | 50th |
| Bottom 25% | ≥ 40 WPM | 25th |
| Bottom 10% | ≥ 30 WPM | 10th |
Bands follow Dhakal et al., CHI 2018 — 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 typists, mean 51.56 WPM.
Full typing test statistics, by age and device →
Questions
Is a 15 second typing test accurate?
It is a fair reading of your peak speed but not of your sustained speed. Short tests read a few WPM higher because fatigue and lapses have not had time to appear.
What is a good typing speed?
The average across a large research sample is about 52 WPM. Above 65 is faster than 70% of typists, above 80 is top 15%, and above 95 is top 5%. Professional transcriptionists work at 90 to 120.
What is the difference between net and raw WPM?
Raw WPM counts every keystroke you made. Net WPM subtracts the errors you left uncorrected. Net is the honest figure, and it is what employers mean when they ask for a typing speed.
How is a word counted?
As five characters including spaces, the standard used in typing research for a century. It makes results comparable across languages and across texts of different word lengths.
What is consistency?
How much your speed varied from second to second during the test. A high figure means you held a steady pace; a low one means you had bursts and stalls, which usually points to specific keys giving you trouble.
Does the keyboard layout matter?
Less than people claim. Alternative layouts such as Dvorak and Colemak show small gains in controlled studies, and most of the speed difference between typists comes from practice and technique rather than layout.
Try next
Results are stored in your browser only. Read how we measure if you want the details of the timing, or go back to the standard typing test.