Pomodoro
Twenty-five minutes and five, adjustable, with the long break on the fourth round and a sound that arrives on time even in the background.
en / tools / typing-speed
Typing speed
How many words a minute you actually type, in English or Italian, with the accuracy and the errors that remain.
Free, in the browser, no account
The clock starts on your first character. Enter does not type: it restarts when time is up.
Left
60.0 s
Net
0
Gross
0
Accuracy
100%
0 uncorrected errors · 0 characters typed
A "word" is five characters, by typing-test convention: it makes languages with different word lengths comparable. Gross is characters typed divided by five, per minute; net subtracts one point per uncorrected error, per minute, and never goes below zero.
The errors counted are the ones that REMAIN. Making a mistake and fixing it costs you nothing on accuracy: it costs you time, which is what happens when you actually write. Counting keystrokes instead of the characters left would charge you twice for the same slip.
What you type does not leave this page: it never reaches the address bar, nothing is stored, and it is gone on reload. Not even the score is kept — a score that persists is a leaderboard, and this is a test.
How it works
- Pick thirty or sixty seconds and the language of the words. Then start typing: the clock starts on your first character.
- Errors colour where they are. You can delete and fix — it costs time, not accuracy.
- When time is up press Enter for another go: nothing is kept.
Why it exists
Because “I type fast” is something you believe, and the number is something else.
It is useful at two different moments. The first is curiosity, and it lasts five minutes. The second is the one that counts: if you are learning to type without looking, or changing layout, or moving from a laptop to a mechanical keyboard, the number is the only way to know whether the discomfort of the first few weeks is going anywhere.
About the numbers, and why there are two
There are at least five definitions of “words per minute” out there, and they differ from each other by twenty per cent. So it is worth saying which one is in use, or the number cannot be compared to anything.
A “word” is five characters. That is a typing-test convention, not a measurement: it makes languages with different word lengths comparable. Without it, a test in German would score half of one in English for the same fingers.
Gross is characters typed divided by five, per minute. It says how fast the fingers go.
Net subtracts one point per remaining error, per minute, and never drops below zero. It says how fast the fingers go usefully, and it is the number to look at — because typing the wrong text quickly is not typing quickly.
About errors
The errors counted are the ones that remain. Making a mistake and fixing it costs you nothing on accuracy: it costs you time, which is exactly what happens when you actually write. Counting keystrokes instead of the characters left would charge you twice for the same slip, and would reward ploughing through mistakes rather than correcting them.
One thing that surprises people and is correct: skip a letter and everything from there on turns red. The count has not gone mad — the comparison is positional, and from that point everything you type sits one character further along than it should. That is what you see on screen, and it is what the number measures. Go back and it realigns.
About the words
They are drawn at random from a list of common words, lower case and without punctuation: a speed test is a test of fingers, not of spelling, and capitals and marks would measure the keyboard rather than the person using it.
The Italian list keeps its accents — è, più, perché, così, già — because they are among the
most frequent words in the language, and a list that left them out would measure speed on a subset
chosen for the convenience of whoever wrote it.
About your data
What you type does not leave this page: it never reaches the address bar, nothing is stored anywhere and it is gone on reload. Not even the score is kept — a score that persists is a leaderboard, and this is a test.
And the rest holds too: this site is made of static files and has no server to send anything to, even if it wanted one.
From here you also go here
Word and character counter
Words, characters, sentences, standard pages and reading time, with the limits for X, Instagram and the meta description.
Text readability
Paste a text and get the GULPEASE index in Italian or Flesch in English, with over-long sentences marked and the words you repeat.