How is WPM calculated?

Net WPM is the number of correctly typed characters divided by five, divided by the number of minutes elapsed. The division by five is the standard convention that a word equals five characters including its trailing space.

What is the difference between net and raw WPM?

Raw WPM counts every character you typed, including mistakes. Net WPM counts only the correct ones. The difference between the two figures is what your errors cost you.

Is CPM the same as WPM?

They are the same measurement at a different scale: CPM divided by five gives WPM, because a word is defined as five characters.

WPM vs CPM: how typing speed is measured

Typing scores look simple and are not. Two sites can give you very different numbers for identical typing, purely because of how they count. Here is exactly how it works.

A word is five characters

The convention every credible test uses is that a 'word' is five characters, including the space that ends it. It is arbitrary, it is universal, and it is what makes 60 wpm mean roughly the same thing everywhere.

So CPM and WPM are the same measurement at different scales: WPM = CPM ÷ 5. If a site reports 300 characters per minute, that is 60 words per minute.

Net speed versus raw speed

Raw speed counts everything you typed, mistakes included. Net speed counts only what was correct. The gap between them is the cost of your errors, which is why showing both is more informative than either alone.

Raw WPM = all characters typed ÷ 5 ÷ minutes
Net WPM = correct characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes
CPM = correct characters ÷ minutes

How accuracy is counted — and where sites differ

This is where results diverge most. Some sites compare only your final text against the target, so a mistake you corrected disappears and almost everyone scores close to 100%. Others, including this one, judge each keystroke as it is pressed and never refund it.

Both are defensible. Only one tells you how often your fingers actually go wrong, and it is the one every serious benchmark uses. It is also the reason our accuracy figures look lower than some other sites for identical typing.

Consistency

Fewer tests report this, and it is genuinely useful. It measures how even your pace was across the test: we take the variation in your per-second rate relative to your average, so a steady rhythm scores near 100 and bursts followed by pauses score lower.

Two people can average 60 wpm with completely different consistency, and the steadier one is the better typist in practice.

Why we never round up

99.96% is displayed as 99.9%, not 100%. A perfect score should mean a perfect score. It is a small thing that says a lot about whether a number is designed to inform you or to please you.

Common questions

How is WPM calculated?: Net WPM is the number of correctly typed characters divided by five, divided by the number of minutes elapsed. The division by five is the standard convention that a word equals five characters including its trailing space.
What is the difference between net and raw WPM?: Raw WPM counts every character you typed, including mistakes. Net WPM counts only the correct ones. The difference between the two figures is what your errors cost you.
Is CPM the same as WPM?: They are the same measurement at a different scale: CPM divided by five gives WPM, because a word is defined as five characters.