Is 70 WPM Good? Where 70 WPM Ranks in 2026

The Short Answer

Want your own number first? Jump into a quick typing race and see where you land.

What I Checked

On 26 October 2026, I pulled Monkeytype's public speed histogram for its English time 60 leaderboard. It held 528,630 results, sorted into 10 WPM brackets. I pulled the 15 second version too, since short tests behave differently.

Then I read the Aalto University study of typing from 136 million keystrokes. It's the biggest public look at how ordinary people type, and its numbers come from a plain online test.

I also checked Google's search suggestions. People don't just ask whether 70 is good. They ask about 70 with 96, 97, 98 or 100 percent accuracy, so this post covers that too.

Where 70 WPM Sits for Everyday Typists

The Aalto study tested 168,960 volunteers who typed sentences in a browser. Their average speed was 51.56 WPM, with a standard deviation of 20.2.

That puts 70 WPM about 18 WPM above the average. If the scores formed a perfect bell curve, 70 would beat about 82% of the group. The paper says the curve leans a little to the right, though, so treat 82% as a rough guide.

Training helped, but less than you'd guess. People who'd taken a typing course averaged 54.35 WPM. Those who hadn't averaged 49.00. The fastest people in the data passed 120 WPM.

Where 70 WPM Sits on Monkeytype

Monkeytype tells a very different story. On its time 60 leaderboard, 42.8% of results sat below 70 WPM. The other 57.2% were at 70 or faster.

The 70s bracket held 74,066 results. Only the 60s bracket was bigger, with 74,921. The middle result of the whole board fell inside the 70s.

So on Monkeytype, 70 is a solid middle score. It isn't rare there. About one result in five, 21.1%, reached 100 WPM or more.

That's not a sign you're slow. It tells you who posts on that leaderboard.

Why the Two Numbers Disagree

Monkeytype's crowd is self selected. People who visit a typing site again and again tend to care about speed, and many use keyboards picked for it.

A leaderboard result is also a best score, not a typical one. Monkeytype's own counter showed 943,984,618 completed tests on the day I checked. Plenty of those come from players retaking the same test to beat a record.

The Aalto test was a single short session. Each person typed about 810 keys on average, and the study used their normal result, not a polished best.

So here's the fair way to read it. Among everyday typists, 70 is fast. Among typing fans, it's average.

Short Tests Make 70 Look Slower

Test length shifts the picture a lot. On Monkeytype's 15 second leaderboard, which held 536,624 results, only 20.8% sat below 70 WPM.

That's a big gap from the 42.8% on the one minute board. Short tests reward a fast start, and you don't have time to tire or lose focus.

The top end moves too. On the 15 second board, 46.9% of results reached 100 WPM or more. On the one minute board, it was 21.1%.

So if your 70 came from a 15 second test, your one minute speed is probably lower. If it came from a full minute or longer, it's a sturdier number.

Is 70 WPM Fast Enough for Jobs?

For most office work, yes. Wikipedia's words per minute page puts professional typists at 43 to 80 WPM on physical keyboards. At 70, you're near the top of that band.

Some roles ask for more. The same page says certain positions require 80 to 95 WPM, usually dispatch and other time sensitive typing jobs. A few advanced typists work above 120.

An older study gives a sense of the floor. In 1999, Karat and colleagues found average computer users transcribed at 32.5 WPM. At 70, you'd type more than twice as fast.

Always check the exact test an employer uses, since each one sets its own rules.

What 70 WPM Feels Like

Typing tests count a word as five characters, spaces included. So 70 WPM means about 350 characters a minute.

That's close to six characters every second. On average, you'd hit a new key every 171 milliseconds.

The Aalto study measured the gap between key presses for every participant. The average gap was 238.66 milliseconds. So a 70 WPM typist leaves gaps about 28% shorter than the average person in that study.

It doesn't feel frantic, though. At that pace, your fingers mostly know where the keys are, and you're reading a word or two ahead.

Does Accuracy Change the Answer?

It can. Monkeytype's about page explains how it scores you. WPM counts only the characters in words you typed correctly. Raw WPM counts every word, wrong ones included. Accuracy is the share of key presses that were correct.

So a 70 WPM score at 98% accuracy means about 2 wrong presses in every 100. At roughly 350 characters a minute, that's about seven slips a minute, each fixed or counted against you.

At 96%, the slips double. At 100%, there are none, and your WPM matches your raw speed more closely.

If you're stuck, accuracy is usually the cheaper fix. Our guide on how accuracy affects your real WPM shows why.

70 WPM on a Phone Is a Different Story

Everything above is about physical keyboards. Phones are much slower.

Wikipedia cites a 2019 study that put the average phone typing speed at 36.2 WPM, with 2.3% uncorrected errors. Speed was linked to age, English skill and the number of fingers used.

So 70 WPM on a phone would be about twice that average. That's rare territory for thumbs.

If a typing site asks you to test on your phone, don't compare that result with a keyboard score. They're measuring two different skills.

How Rare Is 80, 90 or 100 WPM?

Monkeytype's one minute board shows how fast the field thins out above 70. Here's the share of all 528,630 results at or above each speed.

So the climb from 70 to 100 passes about 36% of the leaderboard. Past 120, you're in the top 8% of a crowd that already loves speed typing. Each 10 WPM step gets harder, because fewer people have made it.

Remember, that's among typing fans. Against the Aalto average of 51.56, 100 WPM sits more than two standard deviations above. For a deeper look, read where 100 WPM ranks.

Should You Push Past 70?

That depends on why you type. If you write emails, reports or code, 70 is already plenty. Thinking is usually slower than your fingers at that speed.

If you're chasing a job that tests at 80 or more, it's worth pushing. The same goes if you race other typists and want to climb a leaderboard.

The Aalto data hints at where gains hide. Trained typists averaged about 5 WPM more than untrained ones. The researchers also found rollover typing surprisingly common, where the next key goes down before the last one comes up.

That smooth overlap is something you build with practice, not something you force.

How to Check Your Own Number

One test proves little. Your score moves with the text, your mood and even the time of day.

Here's a fairer way to find your real speed.

1. 1Pick a test of one minute or longer, not 15 seconds.
2. 2Take five tests in a row on the same mode.
3. 3Write down each WPM and accuracy figure.
4. 4Use the middle score, not the best one.

That middle score is the number to compare with this post. You can run the tests in our practice mode, then race real people when you want pressure.