Is 80 words per minute a good typing speed?

Yes. Eighty words per minute (WPM) is a fast keyboard speed. The fastest tenth of typists in a large 2018 online study were those above about 78 WPM ¹. Eighty is above that line, so it counts as fast on the measured scale. It is only a short step past the top tenth. Accuracy decides whether it counts: the court reporting skills test, for example, requires 95 percent accuracy on each leg ².

Our guide to good typing speed places 80 in the full set of levels, and the typing speed overview covers the subject as a whole.

Eighty is about 1.4 standard deviations above the average

The study's average was 51.56 WPM ³. Eighty sits about 1.4 standard deviations above that average ⁴. A standard deviation is the usual spread of speeds around the mean, so 1.4 of them is well above the typical typist.

The distribution is not symmetrical. It is positively skewed, with a longer tail of fast typists ⁵. That means the distance tells you how far 80 is from the average, but it does not give a percentile rank. Our typing speed percentile question explains the difference.

A touch typing study averaged close to 80

In a 2016 Vanderbilt study, standard (touch) typists averaged 79.99 WPM, while nonstandard typists averaged 65.63 ⁶. Eighty is therefore about the average of trained touch typists in that study. The study was small, with 24 typists in each group ⁷, so treat its average as a rough marker. It is a separate study from the 2018 online test, so the two are a range, not one scale.

On a phone, 80 is among the fastest speeds recorded

Phone typing is measured separately. The fastest phone typists in the 2019 phone study reached over 80 WPM ⁸. So 80 on a phone would already put you among the fastest speeds that study recorded. Our guide to phone typing speed gives the figures for each device.

Speeds of 70 and 90 sit on either side

Seventy falls in the above-average band, between the 2018 average and the top-tenth line. Ninety is above the 78 line too, so on the measured scale it also counts as fast. The 100 WPM question covers the next step up, where the measured distance from the average is much larger.

It depends on accuracy and on the test

• Errors reduce the result. Correction time counts against a fast result, so a result at 80 with many corrections is worth less than the raw number. Our gross and net WPM question explains how testing bodies score errors.
• Test rules differ. A typing skills test sets its own floor. The court reporting skills test requires 95 percent accuracy on each leg ², which is a sensible standard for a keyboard result too.
• Your text matters. A short passage of ordinary text is not the same as a long document with unfamiliar words. Measure on text like the work you do.

What to do at 80

1. Measure your gross and net speed on five minutes of ordinary text, and record your errors.
2. Hold accuracy near 95 percent before you push speed further.
3. Judge the goal. If you want finished writing faster, keep in mind that in our reading, planning and revision take most of the time, so speed is not the only bottleneck. The guide to good typing speed sets out that reasoning and marks it as our interpretation.

For the levels below, read is 60 words per minute a good typing speed and is 50 words per minute a good typing speed. For how the speed is calculated, read how typing speed is measured.