What Is a Good Reaction Time? Average ms
Quick answer: A good visual reaction time is around 200 milliseconds (ms), while the average person scores 200–250ms. Anything under 200ms is fast, and elite gamers and athletes reach 150ms or lower. Age, fatigue and focus all affect your score.
Test your reflexes: open the reaction time test and click the moment the signal changes.
Reaction time benchmarks
- Slow (over 300ms): tired, distracted, or warming up.
- Below average (250–300ms): common on a first attempt.
- Average (200–250ms): typical for a focused adult.
- Good (~200ms): sharp and consistent.
- Fast (150–200ms): well-practised gamers.
- Elite (under 150ms): top competitive players and athletes.
What affects your reaction time
Age, sleep, alertness, caffeine and focus all move your score, sometimes by tens of milliseconds. A single slow result usually just means you were distracted — take the average of several tries for a fair number.
Visual vs audio reaction time
People react to sound a little faster than to light — roughly 160–190ms for audio versus 200–250ms for a visual cue — because sound reaches the brain through a shorter processing path.
How to improve your reaction time
Sleep well, practise regularly, and remove avoidable delay from your setup: a higher refresh-rate screen, a wired mouse, and low input lag all shave milliseconds off how fast a signal reaches you and your click reaches the game.
Test your reaction time
Run the reaction time test a few times and take your average to compare with the benchmarks above.