Free tool
Words per minute calculator
Enter what you typed or said and how long it took, and this words per minute calculator gives your typing speed in gross and net WPM, or your speaking rate. It can also time you reading a passage aloud.
- Free
- Typing and speaking
- Nothing is uploaded
What you typed
Typing tests count every 5 characters, spaces included, as one word.
Typing speed
0 WPM
Enter how much you typed and how long it took.
Most people talk about three times faster than they type. NoteOwl’s free dictation types what you say into any app on your Mac, so you write at the speed you speak.
How it works
How do you calculate words per minute?
Divide the words by the minutes. For typing, every five characters count as one word, spaces included: 1,250 characters in 5 minutes is 250 words, or 50 WPM. Net WPM then takes off one word for each mistake left in, per minute.
- 1
Choose typing or speaking
Typing speed takes words or characters; speaking rate takes the words of a talk, or times you reading aloud.
- 2
Enter the time
Minutes and seconds, as long as the typing or the talk took. Add the mistakes you didn’t fix for net WPM.
- 3
Compare
The rate appears at once, beside the average typist or the usual speaking paces.
What is the difference between gross and net WPM?
Gross WPM counts everything you typed; net WPM takes off the mistakes you didn’t fix. Typing 300 words in 5 minutes is 60 gross WPM whatever the errors, while each uncorrected mistake costs a fifth of a word a minute in net WPM.
- No mistakes left in
- Gross60 WPM
- Net60 WPM
- 5 mistakes left in
- Gross60 WPM
- Net59 WPM
- 15 mistakes left in
- Gross60 WPM
- Net57 WPM
- 30 mistakes left in
- Gross60 WPM
- Net54 WPM
| 300 words in 5 minutes | Gross | Net |
|---|---|---|
| No mistakes left in | 60 WPM | 60 WPM |
| 5 mistakes left in | 60 WPM | 59 WPM |
| 15 mistakes left in | 60 WPM | 57 WPM |
| 30 mistakes left in | 60 WPM | 54 WPM |
What is a normal speaking rate?
Around 150 words a minute in everyday conversation and 100 to 150 in a presentation[3]; audiobooks are read at 150 to 160[1]. The speech time calculator plans talks at 110, 130 or 160.
How do you measure your own speaking rate?
Time yourself reading the 166-word passage above aloud, at the pace you’d use for an audience. Or take a talk you’ve already given: count the words of its script or transcript and divide by how long it ran.
- 1
Read it as you’d say it
Not a race: read at your presenting pace, with the pauses you’d really take.
- 2
Read it twice
Use the second time, once the words are familiar and you’re reading for the room rather than for yourself.
- 3
Plan your talk with it
Put your rate into the speech time calculator’s Custom pace to see how many words fit in your slot.
Can you type at the speed you talk?
With dictation, yes. People type at about 52 words a minute on average[2], around a third of their speaking rate. On a Mac, NoteOwl’s free dictation types what you say into any app.
Its voice notes keep a rehearsal’s words beside the audio, so you can count them here. Both run on the Mac, unlimited.
FAQ
Questions about words per minute
How do you calculate WPM from characters?
Divide the characters by five to get words, then divide by the minutes. 1,200 characters typed in 4 minutes is 240 words, or 60 WPM. NoteOwl’s words per minute calculator does this when you switch the count to Characters.
What is net WPM?
Net WPM is your typing speed after mistakes: gross WPM minus the errors you left uncorrected, per minute. Typing 250 words in 5 minutes with 10 mistakes left in is 50 gross WPM and 48 net WPM.
How does my typing speed compare?
In a study of 168,000 people typing online, the average was 52 words a minute and the fastest passed 120. A 1999 study measured computer users at 33 words a minute copying text and 19 writing their own. The words per minute calculator shows how far you are from 52.
How many words per minute do people speak?
About 150 words a minute in everyday American English conversation, and 100 to 150 in a presentation. Audiobooks are read at 150 to 160. Read the passage in the words per minute calculator aloud to find your own rate.
How do I find my speaking rate from a recording?
Count the words in the recording’s transcript or script, and note how long it runs. Paste the text into the words per minute calculator’s speaking section to count the words, enter the length, and your rate appears.
Does the calculator save or send anything?
No. The words per minute calculator does its arithmetic in your browser, and the read-aloud test is a stopwatch: nothing is recorded, sent or stored, and closing the tab clears what you entered.
Sources
Last checked .
- [1]Wikipedia, Words per minute — a word is standardised as five characters; computer users typed 32.5 words a minute copying and 19.0 composing (1999 study); phone typing averaged 36.2 (2019); audiobooks 150–160
- [2]Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, Aalto University, Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes (CHI 2018) — 168,000 volunteers copying sentences online: 51.56 words a minute on average (SD 20.2), the fastest 120 or more; uncorrected errors 1.17%; a word is any five characters
- [3]VirtualSpeech, Average speaking rate and words per minute — about 150 words a minute in American English conversation; presentations 100–150, citing the National Center for Voice and Speech
Keep exploring
More free tools
- Speech time calculatorHow long a speech takes to say from its word count, at a slow, average or fast pace, and how many words fit in a set time
- Online teleprompterPaste a script and it scrolls past a reading line at a speed set in words a minute, with mirror mode, text size, full screen and keyboard control
- Speech timerA speech timer with green, yellow and red timing lights, speech-club presets, full screen and a log of every speaker
- Word counterCount words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs as you type, with reading and speaking time and the most-used words
Related
- Free dictation into any appFree, unlimited speech to text in every app on your Mac: tap fn, talk, and the words type at your cursor; one tap polishes them in the right tone for that app
- Voice notes on your MacVoice notes and dictations saved as searchable text on your Mac, with the raw words beside the polished version; free
- Presentation notes templateA presentation notes template to copy, what each section holds, an example, and how NoteOwl writes it
Write at the speed you speak, free on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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