How WPM is calculated

5 minute read

Words per minute sounds simple, but every typing site counts it a little differently. That is the main reason your score changes from one site to the next. Here is exactly how Keystride does it, so you always know what your number means.

A word is five characters

Typing speed has long been measured with a standard word of five characters, counting spaces and punctuation. That keeps long and short words fair: typing "extraordinary" is worth more than typing "a", because it takes longer.

Type 300 characters in one minute and you scored 60 WPM. Type the same 300 characters in 30 seconds and you scored 120 WPM.

Net WPM: the number we show first

Your headline score only counts words you got completely right, plus the space after each of them. If the test ends partway through a word, the correctly typed start of that word counts too.

A word with a single wrong letter earns nothing, so speed you gain by being careless does not show up in your score.

Raw WPM

Raw speed counts every character left in the text when the test ends, right or wrong, including extra letters. It shows how fast your fingers move before accuracy is taken into account.

A large gap between raw and net WPM means mistakes are costing you more than slow typing is.

Accuracy

Accuracy is measured per keystroke, not on the finished text. If you type a wrong letter and then fix it, the mistake still counts, because it still cost you time.

Consistency

We measure your raw speed in every second of the test and look at how much it varies. A typist who holds a steady 70 WPM scores higher than one who swings between 40 and 100.

Characters: correct, incorrect, extra and missed

• Correct: letters typed in the right place.
• Incorrect: wrong letters typed where a letter was expected.
• Extra: letters typed past the end of a word.
• Missed: letters you skipped by pressing space early.

A worked example

In a 30-second test you type 32 words. Thirty are perfect, with 150 letters between them, and two have mistakes. You pressed 196 keys, and 8 of them were wrong.

Difficulty rating

Each result also shows a difficulty from 1 to 10, based on average word length and how many capitals, numbers and symbols the text contains. A 70 WPM score at difficulty 6 is more impressive than 70 WPM at difficulty 2. For a score you can compare with anyone, use the Standard test: one minute, Everyday 1k words, with punctuation.