WPM Lab

What is WPM?

WPM is short for words per minute, the standard shorthand for typing speed.

WPMwords per minute

A “word” here is a fixed unit rather than a real one: five typed characters. Counting that way is what lets two different passages produce numbers you can put side by side.

typedfive characters = one word

So 60 WPM means 300 characters in a minute. That is the whole of it — WPM says how fast, and nothing at all about how well.

What is WPM Lab?

Four surfaces, one loop: measure, diagnose, train, verify.

1. Type One standardized test, drawn from the same passage pool every time and independent of your curriculum stage, so today’s run is comparable with last week’s.
2. Learn Thirteen stages, from the home row to full text. Each teaches its new keys with the finger and hand shown, then asks you to meet an accuracy and a speed target before the next one unlocks.
3. Train Practice aimed at your own weak spots. Previewed in the Alpha rather than running yet — what it will read is already being measured.
4. Progress Your benchmark standing, your accuracy and hesitation per key, and the transitions between keys that cost you the most.

Your progress lives in this browser’s local storage. There is no account, and nothing to sign up for.

Accuracy first. Speed follows.

Speed on its own is easy to fake. Typing fast and repairing it afterwards produces a large raw number and a run you could not do again.

So the result WPM Lab leads with is adjusted WPM: only the characters you got right the first time count toward it. A mistake costs speed as well as accuracy, which is why raw pace alone can never carry you through a stage.

It is also why no live speed counter runs on a test. A Type run shows only how much of it is left; the speed arrives with the result, where you can read it instead of chase it. Learn practice is the one place a pace shows while you type, because there you are typing at a stage's stated target: it shows your accuracy and your adjusted WPM against the two numbers the round has to meet, and nothing else.

Your typing progress — scores, cleared stages and per-key results — is saved only in this browser. WPM Lab has no accounts and no server of its own that stores it.

Whether analytics starts on depends on where you visit from. In the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland (and a few neighbouring places), or whenever your region can't be told, it stays off unless you accept it. Elsewhere it's on by default. Either way you can turn it off or on here. Our host, Netlify, works out your country from your connection; WPM Lab doesn't store it.

When analytics is on, Google Analytics counts visits, typing tests and their length, Learn rounds and their stage, and Train preview visits. What you type, your scores and your per-key results are never sent.

It sets Google Analytics cookies (_ga) that recognise this browser on later visits. Google also receives your IP address, browser, device and approximate location, and keeps the data for up to 14 months. Advertising features are off.

When it's off, Google Analytics is never loaded and nothing is sent to it. Turning it off stops collection and deletes its cookies; what was already sent stays with Google until it expires.