What percentile is my typing speed?

Your percentile is the share of people in a reference group who type slower than you. A score at the 90th percentile is faster than nine in ten people in that group. The number depends on the group. A score that ranks high among online test takers can be average among a broader group, and keyboard and phone scores sit on different scales (see words per minute).

On a keyboard, 78 WPM is the 90th percentile

The keyboard study here is an online test with a large sample. Its average was 51.56 words per minute ¹, with a standard deviation of 20.2 ². Typists faster than 90 percent of participants were those above about 78 words per minute ³. The slowest 10 percent were below about 26 words per minute ⁴.

On that scale, 78 is the 90th percentile and 26 is the 10th. Most of the group falls between those two cut-offs.

The distribution is not bell-shaped. It is slightly skewed toward faster typists ⁵. Because of that tail, the average sits above the middle of the group. Do not read 51.56 as the 50th percentile.

On phones, 44 WPM is about the 75th percentile

Phone typing is slower on average. In the phone study, the mean was 36.17 words per minute with a standard deviation of 13.22 ⁶. Three quarters of phone typists were below 43.98 words per minute ⁷, so a phone score of 44 is about the 75th percentile of that sample.

Use the phone scale only for phone typing. A keyboard score compared with phone cut-offs will look too high.

The main studies give a few cut-points, not a full table

The two main studies publish only a few cut-points for speed, so a percentile for any score between them is an estimate. We found no published quartile table for keyboard typing speed. Some typing websites publish percentile charts of their own users. Those samples are self-selected and often count words differently, so use them only to compare results from the same test. How typing speed is measured explains the counting rules.

Why the online cut-offs run high

Online volunteers choose to take a typing test, and they are not a random sample. In the keyboard study, 72 percent had taken a typing course ⁸. A group like that sits higher than the general public, so 78 WPM is a benchmark for practiced online testers, not for everyone. The phone group was self-selected in the same way, and the same caution applies.

What to do with your percentile

1. Test the same way twice. Use one test with passages of similar length, and average several runs. A single short test is noisy.
2. Pick the right reference. Use the keyboard scale for a keyboard and the phone scale for a phone. For age groups, see average typing speed by age.
3. Check accuracy alongside speed. A fast score with many errors can rank higher than it deserves. Read gross vs net WPM and the glossary entry on typing accuracy.
4. Decide whether the rank matters. For a plain reading of a single score, see is 60 WPM good.

For the full picture of typical speeds, start with the guide to average typing speed, or the typing speed overview.