What Is an Average Typing Speed?

It is common to see confident claims about "the average typing speed". The honest answer is that it depends heavily on who was measured and how.

What a large study found

One of the largest published studies, *Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes* (Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, CHI 2018), analysed transcription typing by about 168,000 volunteers who took an online test. Participants averaged roughly 52 WPM, with a wide spread between the slowest and fastest typists. Source: ACM Digital Library.

Why you should read that number carefully

• The participants chose to take a typing test, so they may type more than the general population.
• The test was transcription (copying text), which is faster than composing your own sentences.
• Speeds on phones and tablets are measured differently and are not comparable with physical keyboards.

A fairer comparison: yourself

The most useful comparison is your own trend over time under the same conditions — same test length, same language, same keyboard. Track it in your progress dashboard.

What matters for your goals

For everyday work, accuracy and a calm, consistent rhythm matter more than a peak number. If your job involves long documents, endurance matters too — try marathon practice.

Take a test to find your starting point.