Updated 19 September 2026
TypingClub alternatives
Most people do not need a TypingClub replacement. They need the thing that comes after it.
TypingClub is a course. Courses end. The typing community's standing advice is: learn the keys on TypingClub or keybr, then move to something that builds speed — keybr for your weak keys, Monkeytype for measurement, a game for the part where you actually keep practising.
If you want out for a different reason — the strict star grading, or the ads on the free tier — there are real replacements below.
The three real reasons people leave
1. You finished the part that matters
This is the most common reason by far, and it is not a complaint. TypingClub is roughly 650 sequential lessons, and the finger-placement work is done long before the end.
The typing community says this constantly. One representative September 2026 comment: “I suggest starting with TypingClub for the first 7 to 10 days.” Another: “I spent the first week on TypingClub to learn what each finger should do, then I moved on to keybr.”
Seven to ten days. Not six months.
2. The star grading punishes you for being slow
TypingClub grades every lesson against a speed target. Miss it and you lose stars, and sometimes you redo the lesson. For a beginner deliberately going slow to build good technique, that is backwards.
A March 2026 review: “it gave me 0 stars and points because I was 36 wpm when I was supposed to be 38 wpm. I had to redo the level just because I was slower only by 2 wpm.” A parent: “This website literally makes my kid cry. You need to be able to go slowly in order to learn typing technique.”
TypingClub's Trustpilot score is 1.9 out of 5 across 65 reviews, and most of the one-star reviews are about exactly this. Worth saying honestly: that profile is unclaimed and the company has never asked customers for reviews, so the sample skews angry.
3. The free tier shows targeted ads to students
This one is worth knowing because it comes from EdClub's own privacy policy, not from a critic. It states that EdClub “uses your information to provide targeted advertisements to you when using the Individual Edition and School Edition Basic versions.”
Their pricing table lists “No Advertisements” as a paid-only feature, which says the same thing from the other direction. The free school tier also keeps only 30 days of activity data and caps you at 3 classes and 2 instructors.
What we are not going to claim. There is no COPPA scandal here, and Common Sense Education has not rated TypingClub's privacy at all — its rating reads “not yet rated”. A claim circulating online that Common Sense found targeted advertising and third-party tracking is false. The EdClub policy quote above is the real, verifiable fact.
What TypingClub costs, for comparison
- Free — full lesson course, ad-supported, no account needed to start
- Individual Premium — $8.50 a month, or $35 a year
- Schools — from $120 a year for 20 licences, down to $3.40 per student at 1,000 licences, quoted instantly on their own calculator
Credit where it is due: TypingClub publishes its school prices openly. Typing.com, its closest rival, makes you request a quote.
Where to go next
keybr
The standard next step
keybr is what most of the typing community tells you to do after TypingClub, and the reason is that it does the one thing TypingClub does not: it targets your specific weak letters and generates practice text weighted toward them.
It introduces the alphabet gradually and only unlocks new letters once you are reliable on the ones you have. No star grading, no redoing lessons.
- Adapts to your actual weaknesses instead of a fixed syllabus
- Free, no account, no speed gate
- Very dry — there is no game layer at all
- Assumes you already know finger placement
Pew Pew Type
For the part where people quit
The reason people stop practising is not that they do not know what to do. It is that ten more minutes of drills is unbearable. This is a typing game: words are alien ships and you type them to shoot them down.
Its word sets follow the same order TypingClub teaches — home row first, then top row, then bottom — so you can move across without losing your place.
- No account, no ads, nothing uploaded
- Word sets match the order you learned them in
- No speed gate and no stars to lose
- Not a course — finish your lessons first
Monkeytype
For measuring where you actually are
Free, open source, and the standard benchmark once you can touch type. After a course full of stars and percentages, it is useful to get one plain number.
Change the default word list to English 10k and turn punctuation on. The default is only 200 common words, which makes everyone look faster than they are.
- No account, ads can be turned off in settings
- Open source, GPL-3.0
- No lessons, no finger guidance
- Defaults flatter your score
Typing.com
If you need a curriculum, not just typing
The main free alternative if what you actually want is another structured course. Run by Teaching.com since 2001, it covers typing plus digital citizenship, AI literacy and coding.
Be warned about the ads. They are heavier than TypingClub's, and teachers report genuinely unsuitable ones appearing in front of children.
- Broader curriculum than typing alone
- Rosters with Google Classroom, Clever and ClassLink
- Free tier carries a full programmatic ad stack
- Only 70 days of data retention on free
- PLUS pricing is not published — you must request a quote
TypeRacer
If you need competition to keep going
Live races against real people on real quotes, running since 2008. Every typo must be corrected before you can continue, which is closer to real writing than any drill.
Good for someone who finished a course and immediately stopped practising.
- Real multiplayer, healthy player pool
- Forces accuracy
- Ads unless you pay $12 a year
- Not for absolute beginners
The honest order
- Week 1 — TypingClub or our own 4-step touch typing guide, until you know where every key is without looking
- Weeks 2 to 4 — keybr for your weak keys, plus a game so you keep showing up
- Then — Monkeytype once a week to see the number move
You do not need to finish all 650 lessons. You need to be able to type without looking, and then you need to keep typing.
Related
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to TypingClub?
keybr is the usual next step, because it targets your weakest individual keys rather than following a fixed syllabus, and it has no speed gate. If you want another full course instead, Typing.com is the main free rival, though its ads are heavier. If you already know the keys and just stopped practising, a typing game will do more for you than another course.
Do I need to finish all of TypingClub's lessons?
No. The finger-placement work is done in roughly the first week to ten days, and that is the part that matters. The community's standing advice is to use TypingClub to learn where the keys are and then move to tools that build speed. Finishing all 650 lessons is optional and most people never do.
Does TypingClub show ads to students?
Yes on the free tier, and they are targeted. EdClub's own privacy policy states that it uses your information to provide targeted advertisements on the Individual Edition and the School Edition Basic version. Their pricing page lists no advertisements as a paid feature. Paid accounts are not shown ads and their information is not shared with advertisers.
How much does TypingClub cost?
The individual plan is $8.50 a month or $35 a year, advertised as a limited-time price. School licences start at $120 a year for 20 seats, the minimum, falling to about $3.40 per student at 1,000 seats. There is a 3-day individual trial and a 60-day school trial.
Why does TypingClub give me zero stars when I finish a lesson?
Because each lesson has a speed target as well as an accuracy target, and missing the speed target by even one or two words per minute can zero your stars. This is the most common complaint about the platform. If you are deliberately typing slowly to build correct technique, that grading works against you, and it is a reasonable reason to move to a tool without speed gates.
Is TypingClub good for adults?
The lesson content is sound for any age, but the presentation is built for school children, including cartoon intro videos, and adult learners regularly say it does not feel aimed at them. The method matters more than the packaging, so a reasonable approach is to use it for the first week to learn finger placement and then switch.