APM Test
How to use it: pick 30 s or 60 s, press START (or Enter), then click inside the box and press keys as fast as you can. Every mouse click and every fresh key press is one action. Holding a key down only counts once.
This APM test measures your actions per minute: how many mouse clicks and key presses you make in one minute. Pick a 30 or 60 second round, press START and mix clicks and keys as fast as you can. You get a final APM, your total actions and your fastest 5 seconds.
APM is the speed stat of real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, where players issue hundreds of commands a minute. This page lets you find your raw input speed in the browser, with nothing to install. Your best score for each length is saved on this device.
How to take the APM test
- Choose a length with the buttons under the score tiles: 30 s or 60 s. The test starts on 60 s.
- Press START, or press Enter. The heading changes to “GO!”, the box border lights up and the length buttons hide until the round ends.
- Click inside the box and press keys on your keyboard as fast as you can. Each action makes the box flash and adds one to the Actions tile.
- Watch the APM tile. It shows your live speed over the last 5 seconds, so you can see the moment you start to slow down.
- When the Seconds tile reaches 0, the round stops. The box shows your final score, for example “312 APM”, plus a line such as “156 actions in 30 seconds. Fastest 5 seconds: 348 APM.”
- Press PLAY AGAIN for another round. If you beat your previous score for that length you also see “New best!”.
Keep the pointer inside the box during the round. If you click somewhere else on the page, key presses go to the page instead of the test and stop counting until you click back into the box.
What counts as an action
An action is one mouse button press inside the box or one fresh key press. The test counts the moment a button or key goes down, not when it comes back up, so a click is never counted twice.
| Input | Counts? | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Left, right or middle click inside the box | Yes, 1 each | The right-click menu is blocked during a round |
| Tap on a touchscreen inside the box | Yes, 1 each | Works, but phone scores are not comparable |
| Any key press | Yes, 1 each | Letters, numbers, Space, arrows, F keys |
| Holding a key down | Once | Auto-repeat from a held key is ignored |
| Two keys pressed together | Yes, 2 | Each key counts separately |
| Click outside the box | No | The score tiles and the rest of the page do not count |
| Mouse movement or scroll wheel | No | Only button and key presses count |
The held-key rule matters. In many games, holding a hotkey fires repeated commands and pushes the in-game number up without any extra effort. Here a key has to go up and come down again before it counts a second time, so the score reflects real presses.
Shortcuts with Ctrl, Alt or Cmd still count as actions, but the browser may react to them, for example by opening a menu or a new tab. Tab also counts, but it moves keyboard focus. Stick to plain letter, number and Space keys and you will not lose a round to an accidental shortcut.
How your APM is calculated
Your final APM is your total actions divided by the round length in minutes, rounded to a whole number. On a 60 second round your APM equals your number of actions. On a 30 second round the test doubles your total, so 156 actions in 30 seconds is 312 APM and both lengths sit on the same scale.
The live APM tile works differently. It counts only the actions from the last 5 seconds and converts them to a per-minute rate, updated ten times a second. In the first 5 seconds of a round it uses the time played so far, and it stays at 0 during the first second.
“Fastest 5 seconds” is the highest live reading you reached once the round was at least 5 seconds old. An opening burst in the first second or two cannot inflate it. Your fastest 5 seconds is almost always higher than your final APM, because nobody holds peak speed for a full minute.
Since APM is per minute and most people think in presses per second, this table converts between the two:
| APM | Actions per second | What that feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | 1 | One press every second |
| 120 | 2 | A steady walking rhythm |
| 300 | 5 | Fast, focused input |
| 420 | 7 | Seven presses every second |
| 600 | 10 | Ten presses every second |
| 818 | about 13.6 | The highest APM reported in a StarCraft match |
The arithmetic is simple: divide APM by 60 to get actions per second, or multiply actions per second by 60 to get APM.
What is a good APM?
There is no official scale, but published game data gives useful reference points. Beginners in real-time strategy games often play below 50 APM, while South Korean StarCraft professionals usually average around 250 to 350 APM and often pass 400 in intense fights, according to the Wikipedia article on actions per minute.
A large study of APM in a real game comes from the SkillCraft project at Simon Fraser University. Thompson and colleagues analysed StarCraft II replays from 3,360 players, from Bronze league up to professionals, and the average APM across the whole sample was about 117. They also found that APM became the stronger predictor only when separating Diamond players from professionals. In the middle leagues, how quickly a player made their first action after looking at a new part of the map mattered more.
| Reference point | APM | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner RTS players | often below 50 | Wikipedia |
| Average across 3,360 StarCraft II players | about 117 | Thompson et al. 2013 |
| Korean StarCraft professionals, match average | about 250 to 350 | Wikipedia |
| Professionals in intense fights | over 400 | Wikipedia |
| Highest reported match APM (Park Sung-Joon) | 818 | Wikipedia |
Why your score here is higher than in a game
Expect a number well above your in-game APM. In a match you spend time reading the map, deciding what to build and moving the camera, and each of those pauses lowers your average. This test removes the thinking: you only have to press things fast. Treat your result as your input ceiling, the speed your hands can manage when nothing else is going on.
The two numbers also come from different counting rules. StarCraft II and replay tools each use their own definition of an action, and the Sc2gears replay analyser notes that Blizzard’s game clock runs about 1.38 times faster than real time on the Faster speed setting, so in-game APM depends on which clock a tool uses. This test always uses real seconds.
APM vs EAPM
APM counts every action, useful or not. EAPM, effective actions per minute, tries to count only the commands that change something in the game. Replay tools such as Sc2gears drop actions that failed, commands cancelled almost straight away, rapid repeats of the same command and selections that were never given an order.
The gap between the two is mostly spam: clicking the same spot or tapping the same hotkey over and over to stay warm. Wikipedia notes that the 818 APM record was measured over a short time in a game and was probably caused by spamming or holding a key down. A high APM with a low EAPM means fast hands but wasted input.
This browser test cannot tell useful actions from spam, because there is no game to act on. Every press counts. That makes it a pure speed measure, which is exactly what you want when you are training raw input speed, but it is not a measure of how well you play.
APM and other speed tests
APM, CPS and typing speed all measure how fast you make inputs, but they count different things.
- CPS (clicks per second) counts mouse clicks only, per second. The CPS test on the homepage and the 10 second click test are built for that.
- APM counts clicks and key presses together, per minute. A clicking-only score of 7 CPS equals 420 APM.
- Clicks per minute is the mouse-only version of a per-minute score. The clicks per minute test runs a full 60 seconds of clicking.
- Typing speed counts correct words, not raw presses. A mistyped word still adds actions here but loses you points on the typing speed test.
Using it as a mouse APM test
You can run a mouse APM test by ignoring the keyboard and only clicking inside the box. Your APM then equals your clicks per minute, and dividing it by 60 gives your clicks per second. Switch between left and right buttons, or click with two fingers, and compare the results with a round of mouse plus keyboard. Adding the keyboard hand gives you a second source of presses, so a mixed round normally scores higher than a clicking-only one.
How to raise your APM
Raw APM goes up fastest when you spread the work across more fingers and keep every press light.
- Use both hands. Keep one hand on the mouse and the other resting on the keyboard. Alternate between them so neither hand has to work flat out.
- Use home keys. Rest four fingers on keys you can hit without moving your hand, such as A, S, D and F, or 1, 2, 3 and 4. Moving the hand between presses costs time.
- Roll your fingers. Press neighbouring keys in sequence, like a drum roll. Each finger then gets a short rest between its own presses, instead of one finger doing all the work.
- Release fully. A key held down counts once. If your score feels low, check that each key comes all the way up before you press it again.
- Stay loose. Tense forearms slow your presses and tire you sooner. Shake out your hands between rounds.
- Train in short rounds. The 30 second length is good for building speed, the 60 second length for building stamina. Compare your fastest 5 seconds with your final APM: a big gap means you are fading late in the round.
For in-game APM that actually wins, hotkeys matter more than raw speed. Learning control groups and building shortcuts gives every action a purpose. Use this test to warm up your hands, then let the game teach you where the actions should go.
If your bottleneck is noticing what to do rather than pressing fast enough, the reaction time test and the aim trainer train the looking side, and the guide on how to improve reaction time explains what helps.
Where APM matters
APM started in the StarCraft community, where fan-made replay tools let viewers see how fast players were. StarCraft II then built it into the game interface, and it is still the best known place to see it. The term is also used for other real-time strategy games and for fighting games.
APM became news again in 2019, when DeepMind’s AlphaStar played StarCraft II on the public ladder. Blizzard said the agent ran with built-in caps on its effective actions per minute and per second, including peak APM, set in consultation with pro players. Those caps existed so a computer could not win on input speed alone, a good reminder that APM measures how fast you act, not how well you decide.
Limits of this test
- Browser timing. The round timer and counting run in your browser. A busy computer can delay the screen update slightly, but every press is still counted.
- Keyboards differ. Some keyboards cannot register many keys pressed at the same moment, and a key it does not report cannot be counted. Rolling keys one after another avoids this.
- Device scores do not mix. Tapping a phone screen is a different skill from a mouse and keyboard, so compare scores on the same device.
- Best scores stay local. Your best APM for 30 s and 60 s is kept separately in this browser only. A different browser, a private window or clearing site data starts from zero.
Related tools
- Spacebar counter: count presses of a single key.
- Click counter: count clicks with no time limit.
- What is a good CPS?: clicking speed benchmarks to compare with your mouse-only APM.
- Mouse test: check every mouse button registers before you chase a score.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good APM score?
On this test, anything over 300 APM means you are making five or more inputs every second. In games, beginners often sit below 50 APM and the average StarCraft II player in the SkillCraft study was about 117 APM. Korean professionals average around 250 to 350 in matches.
How is APM calculated?
APM is total actions divided by minutes played. On this test a 60 second round gives your action count directly, and a 30 second round doubles it. The live tile uses only the last 5 seconds, so it moves faster than the final score.
Does holding a key count as multiple actions?
No. A held key counts once, and auto-repeat is ignored. The key has to come back up before the next press counts. Holding two different keys at the same time counts as two actions.
Is APM the same as CPS?
No. CPS counts only mouse clicks and measures them per second. APM counts mouse clicks and key presses together and measures them per minute. If you only click, APM divided by 60 equals your CPS.
What is the highest APM ever recorded?
The highest figure commonly reported is 818 APM by StarCraft player Park Sung-Joon. It was measured over a short stretch of a match and was probably the result of spamming or holding a key down, so it is not a sustained average.
What is EAPM?
EAPM means effective actions per minute. It counts only actions that do something useful in the game and drops spam, failed commands and instant cancels. This browser test counts every press, so it shows APM, not EAPM.
Can I take the APM test on a phone?
Yes, taps inside the box count as actions. The test is designed for a mouse and keyboard, though, and two hands on a desktop are much faster than thumbs on glass, so phone scores are not comparable.
Is my best APM saved?
Yes. Your best score for each length, 30 s and 60 s, is saved in this browser on this device. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data resets it.