Guides

Dictation vs typing speed: what the research says, and how to measure your own

By · Published · Updated

Yes, for getting words down, dictation is usually faster than typing. In a study by researchers at Stanford, the University of Washington and Baidu, people entered short messages on an iPhone at 153 words per minute by voice and 52 words per minute on the keyboard, nearly three times faster, with fewer errors. That study was on phones, with set phrases to copy, so it does not tell you how a Mac with a full keyboard compares, and dictation still loses time on editing, symbols, code and noisy rooms.

I built YapToText, a free Mac dictation app, because my hands make typing difficult, and I dictate every day. So I care about this question, and I would rather give you an honest answer than a big multiplier. This page covers what the studies measured and what they did not, how fast people really type, how to read your own words per minute on YapToText's Statistics page, and where dictation is slower than typing.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

On this page: 11 sections
  1. Steps
  2. The short answer, with the numbers
  3. What the phone study measured, and what it did not
  4. How fast people type on a real keyboard
  5. Measure your own speed with YapToText
    1. Step 1: Dictate for a while
    2. Step 2: Open Statistics
    3. Step 3: Read the insights
  6. How to read your own numbers
  7. Where dictation is slower than typing
  8. Get the most speed out of dictation
  9. What the numbers cannot tell you
  10. The short version
  11. Questions

Steps

  1. Dictate through a normal day with YapToText: click where the words go, tap Right Command, talk, and tap it again.
  2. Open Statistics in the sidebar, or the chart button on the History page.
  3. Read your speaking pace in words per minute; a dash means you have spoken for less than 30 seconds in total.
  4. Read the time saved in Insights, which compares against typing at 40 words a minute.
  5. Divide your words spoken by your own typing speed and subtract time speaking to get your own time saved.

The short answer, with the numbers

Three studies from universities give the clearest numbers I could find, and every number below comes from the paper's own page or the university's own news story. Speaking is faster than typing for raw text entry, but the best-known figure was measured on a phone.

Checked October 5, 2026, on arXiv, the ACM Digital Library and the University of Cambridge's own news page.

StudyWhat people didSpeechKeyboard
Ruan, Wobbrock, Liou, Ng and Landay (Stanford, University of Washington, Baidu)Copied short messages on an iPhone 6 Plus, in English153 words per minute52 words per minute on the iOS keyboard
The same studyCopied short messages in Mandarin Chinese123 words per minute43 words per minute on the Pinyin keyboard
Foley, Casiez and Vogel (CHI 2020)28 people composed their own text and copied set text on a smartphoneFaster in both tasksSlower in both, with a smaller gap when composing
Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta, reported by the University of Cambridge168,000 volunteers typed randomized phrases on a computer keyboardNot measured52 words per minute on average; the fastest reached 120

So the honest summary is this. On a phone, speech beat the on-screen keyboard by close to three times for copying short messages. When people had to think up their own words, speech still won, by less. And the average person on a computer keyboard types about as fast as the phone typists in the Stanford lab did, which is a coincidence of two different tests, not a comparison.

What the phone study measured, and what it did not

The study behind the "speech is three times faster" headline is by Sherry Ruan, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Kenny Liou, Andrew Ng and James Landay. It first appeared on arXiv in 2016 and was published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies in January 2018. It compared Baidu's Deep Speech 2 with the built-in iOS keyboards, on an iPhone, in a lab.

  • The device. An Apple iPhone 6 Plus, in a laboratory setting. Not a Mac, and not a physical keyboard.
  • The task. Transcribing short messages: people were given the text and entered it. Nobody had to decide what to say.
  • The result. Speech was 2.93 times faster than the keyboard in English, 153 against 52 words per minute, and 2.87 times faster in Mandarin, 123 against 43. Speech also made fewer errors during entry.
  • The software. Baidu's Deep Speech 2, the recognizer of that time. Speech recognition has changed since, and none of these numbers were measured with Whisper, with Apple Dictation or with YapToText.

The later study by Margaret Foley, Géry Casiez and Daniel Vogel asked the obvious next question: what if people compose their own words? With 28 participants on a smartphone, speech was faster than typing both when composing and when transcribing, but the difference was smaller for composing, and composing by speech took more preparation time before people started talking. The talking is fast; the thinking is the same speed it always was.

Neither study tested a Mac. I could not find a university study comparing dictation with a full keyboard on a desktop computer, so I will not give you a multiplier for one.

How fast people type on a real keyboard

The largest typing study I know of collected 136 million keystrokes from 168,000 volunteers, and the University of Cambridge reported that the average participant typed 52 words per minute. The average typist does about 52 words a minute; trained typists of the past did 60 to 90.

  • The average. 52 words per minute, on randomized phrases in a controlled test.
  • The fastest. The fastest participants typed 120 words per minute.
  • Trained typists. Cambridge's story says professionally trained typists in the 1970s and 1980s typically reached 60 to 90 words per minute.
  • Fewer mistakes. The fastest typists also made fewer errors, and they often pressed the next key before releasing the last one.

Put the two studies side by side and the gap on a Mac looks smaller than on a phone. Copying set phrases, an average typist does about 52 words a minute, and the phone study's speakers did about 153. Composing real writing is slower for both, and none of these studies measured that on a Mac. If you type 90 words a minute, dictation has less to win for you. If typing hurts, or your hands make it slow, as mine do, the comparison is not close.

Measure your own speed with YapToText

Studies describe other people. YapToText's Statistics page adds up your own dictation from your History, on your Mac. Your own words per minute is the number that matters, and the app works it out for you. YapToText is free on the Mac App Store and needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later.

Step 1: Dictate for a while

  • You: Click where the words go, tap Right Command, talk, and tap it again. Do this through a normal day of email, messages and notes.
  • YapToText: Files each dictation in History, with the words and how long you spoke.
  • Check: Your dictations appear on the History page. Your first dictation covers the basics if this is new.

Step 2: Open Statistics

  • You: Click Statistics in the sidebar, or the chart button on the History page.
  • YapToText: Shows four totals, dictations, words spoken, time speaking and your speaking pace in words per minute, then a bar chart of words per day for the last 30 days.
  • Check: Speaking pace shows a number. If it shows a dash, you have spoken for less than 30 seconds in total, so keep dictating.

Step 3: Read the insights

  • You: Look at the Insights card.
  • YapToText: Shows the time saved versus typing everything at 40 words a minute, your current streak and your best one, and how many words a typical dictation runs.
  • Check: The next section explains what the time saved number includes, and what it leaves out.
YapToText's Statistics page: dictation count, words spoken, time speaking, a words per day chart, and insights.
Figure 1. The Statistics page, with demo numbers: speaking pace is your own words per minute, and Insights shows the time saved against typing at 40 words a minute.

Every number is worked out on your Mac from your own history when you open the page, and nothing is tracked or sent anywhere. The Statistics guide describes every card.

How to read your own numbers

The two numbers people look at first are speaking pace and time saved, and each one answers a narrower question than it seems to. Speaking pace is how fast you talk, not how fast you finish a piece of writing.

  • Speaking pace. Your words per minute across everything you have dictated, so it reflects how you talk. Compare it with the 153 words per minute in the phone study only loosely: that was people reading set messages aloud, and yours is you thinking out loud.
  • Time saved. How long typing the same words at 40 words a minute would take, minus the time you spent talking. It counts talking time, so the time you spend reading what landed and fixing it afterward is not part of it.
  • Your typing speed. The comparison uses 40 words a minute; it does not measure how fast you type. If you type faster than 40, the real saving for you is smaller than the card says. If you type slower, it is bigger.
  • What is counted. Statistics follow History, so the defaults, Keep last 500 and auto-delete after 30 days, trim the totals. With history off, new dictations are not counted.

To redo the sum for your own typing speed, take the words spoken total and divide it by your typing speed, which a free online typing test can tell you. That is how many minutes typing the same words would take you. Subtract time speaking, and you have your own time saved. As an example of the arithmetic only: 3,000 words at 40 words a minute is 75 minutes of typing, and at 60 words a minute it is 50.

For a single dictation, History has the detail. Click Show pipeline details and you see how long you spoke, and Stop to text, the wait after you stop, split into transcription, AI cleanup and delivery. The History guide explains each line.

A YapToText History entry with pipeline details open: raw transcript, cleaned transcript, mode, delivery, target app and timings.
Figure 2. Show pipeline details in History: time spoken is the talking, and stop to text is the wait before the words land, with its parts.

Where dictation is slower than typing

Dictation is fast at one thing: turning sentences in your head into sentences on the screen. Everything else is a cost, and it is fair to count it. Dictation wins on prose and loses on fixes, symbols and noise.

  • Editing. Moving the cursor, selecting a word and changing it is quick with a keyboard and a mouse. By voice, YapToText has two shortcuts: say scratch that as your next dictation within 30 seconds to remove what just landed, or replace one word with another the same way. For anything bigger, select the words and use Quick Edit to say the change. All of that is still slower than a keyboard for a one-letter typo.
  • Symbols. Every mark is a name you have to say. Whisper punctuates ordinary speech by itself, but one-word names such as comma need insert in front while Require the word insert before a command is on, which is the default. The spoken punctuation guide lists them all.
  • Code. Brackets, exact casing and spacing are not how anyone talks. Dictate comments, commit messages and prompts, and type the syntax. The guide to dictation for coding goes into why.
  • Noisy rooms. YapToText removes background noise before transcribing, but a noisy room can still turn a word into something else, and every misheard word is a fix. Apple's own Dictation advice suggests a headset microphone in a noisy room or one with a lot of echo, and the microphone guide covers choosing one.
  • The wait. Text arrives after you stop, not as you type. The first dictation after launch waits while the model loads, and models stay loaded for 2 minutes after use by default, so the next dictation after an unload takes a few extra seconds. The Energy page sets how long they stay.
  • Very short replies. Tap, talk, tap and wait has a fixed cost. I have not measured where the crossover is, but for a one-word answer, a keyboard is hard to beat if your hands allow it.
  • Thinking. The composing study found that speech needs more preparation time before you start. Talking does not make deciding what to say any faster.

Apple Dictation has one more cost of its own: it stops after 30 seconds without speech, so a long pause to think can end it. The 30-second limit page explains why.

Get the most speed out of dictation

The fastest way I know is to split the work: say the draft, then fix it with whatever is quickest for you. Talk the first draft, then edit with the tool that costs you least.

  • Say whole thoughts. Dictate a paragraph at a time rather than a word at a time, so the fixed cost of starting and stopping is spread over more words. YapToText has no silence timeout by default, so a pause to think does not end the dictation.
  • Teach it your names. Add the names and terms you say often to Dictionaries. They shape what Whisper hears, not just what it types, so there are fewer fixes later. The Dictionaries guide shows how.
  • Let Auto mode tidy it. Auto mode, on by default, fixes misheard words, punctuation and capitals in ordinary sentences, and keeps your wording. That is fewer things to correct by hand.
  • Skip the last key press. In chat apps, After a dictation lands, in Settings, Advanced, Text output, can press Return for you, per app. It sends without a second look, so use it only where a wrong word would not hurt.
  • Fix by voice when you can. scratch that and replace handle the dictation that just landed, and Quick Edit handles a selection anywhere.

Say: As your next dictation, within 30 seconds of the last one landing.

replace Tuesday with Thursday

What happens: YapToText swaps the word in the text it just typed instead of typing the phrase. Only the exact whole phrase counts, and it needs Insert text automatically, which is on by default.

For a setup built around never touching the keyboard, the guide to typing on a Mac without hands puts the pieces together.

What the numbers cannot tell you

  • The studies. The three-times figure comes from phones, set phrases, a lab and a 2016 recognizer. It says nothing direct about a Mac, a physical keyboard or Whisper.
  • The typing average. 52 words per minute is an average from an online test of randomized phrases. Your own speed on your own writing may be higher or lower.
  • YapToText's Statistics. It measures your dictation, not your typing, and its time saved compares against 40 words a minute. It does not count the time you spend reading and fixing, and it only counts what History keeps. I make no claim about YapToText's accuracy rate, because I have not measured one.
  • YapToText itself. It needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later, and nothing is claimed for Intel Macs. There is no iPhone version, so it cannot repeat the phone study for you.

The research says speech can be faster; only your own numbers say whether it is faster for you.

The short version

  • The research. On an iPhone, speech hit 153 words per minute against 52 on the keyboard, nearly three times faster, copying short messages.
  • The keyboard. The average person types about 52 words per minute on a computer keyboard; the fastest in that study reached 120.
  • The catch. Editing, symbols, code and noisy rooms are slower by voice, and none of these studies tested a Mac.
  • Your numbers. YapToText's Statistics page shows your own speaking pace and the time saved against typing at 40 words a minute, on your Mac.

Say the draft, fix it however is fastest for you, and let your own numbers settle it.

If your numbers tell a different story from this page, or you know of a study on desktop dictation I missed, open an issue on GitHub. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

Is dictation faster than typing?

For entering text, usually yes. In a Stanford, University of Washington and Baidu study on an iPhone, speech reached 153 words per minute against 52 on the keyboard. Editing, symbols and code are still faster on a keyboard for most people.

How many words per minute can you dictate?

In the phone study, people copying short English messages by voice averaged 153 words per minute. Your own pace depends on how you talk and think, and YapToText's Statistics page shows it as your speaking pace.

What is the average typing speed on a keyboard?

About 52 words per minute, according to a study of 168,000 volunteers reported by the University of Cambridge. The fastest participants typed 120 words per minute.

Was the speech versus typing study done on a computer?

No. It used an iPhone 6 Plus in a lab, with Baidu's Deep Speech 2 against the built-in iOS keyboards. It does not measure a Mac or a physical keyboard.

How does YapToText work out time saved?

It takes how long typing the same words at 40 words a minute would take and subtracts the time you spent talking. It does not measure your typing speed or count the time you spend fixing text.