The full percentile ladder
| WPM | Faster than… | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | ~6% of people | Beginner |
| 25 | ~12% | Beginner |
| 30 | ~19% | Below average |
| 35 | ~30% | Approaching average |
| 40 | ~42% | Average |
| 45 | ~55% | Average+ |
| 50 | ~68% | Above average |
| 55 | ~79% | Quick |
| 60 | ~87% | Fast |
| 65 | ~93% | Fast |
| 70 | ~96% | Very fast |
| 75 | ~98% | Professional |
| 80 | ~99% | Professional |
| 90 | 99th percentile | Elite |
| 100 | Top ~1% | Elite |
| 120+ | Top fraction of 1% | Competitive |
See your exact percentile
Click the words and start typing — the timer starts on your first keystroke. space next word · Esc restart
How these percentiles are calculated
We model the population as a normal distribution with mean 43 WPM and standard deviation 15, fitted to the two anchor studies in our methodology — Ostrach’s all-population ~40 WPM and Aalto’s online-tester 52 WPM. Your percentile is the share of that curve below your score. One honest wrinkle: real typing data is slightly right-skewed (a long tail of very fast typists and a hard floor at zero), so the extreme top of the ladder is approximate — “top 1%” is robust, “99.4th percentile” would be false precision, and we don’t publish false precision. As this site’s own anonymous test dataset grows, the model shifts from published-study-fitted to directly measured, and this page’s verified date will mark the change.
Why percentiles beat raw WPM
“I type 55 WPM” means little without a reference; “I type faster than 4 out of 5 people” is a fact you can use — on a resume, in a job application, or as a practice target. Percentiles also make progress motivating in a way raw WPM doesn’t: going from 40 to 50 WPM sounds like ten points; going from the 42nd to the 68th percentile means you passed a quarter of the population. Same improvement, correct framing.
For what the tiers mean in practice — jobs, school, everyday use — see what is a good typing speed; for how the averages shift across life, averages by age.
Sources
- Model anchors: Ostrach (3,475 people) and Aalto CHI 2018 (168,000 volunteers, 136M keystrokes) — full citations on the methodology page.
FAQ
What percentile is 55 WPM?
Roughly the 79th — faster than about 4 in 5 people.
What WPM is the top 10%?
About 62–63 WPM and up on our model. Call it 65 to be safely inside.
What WPM is the top 1%?
Right around 100 WPM sustained with high accuracy.