Choosing a Keyboard Size
Every common size, what you give up at each step down, and which one to buy based on what you actually do at your desk.
Most people choose a keyboard size by looking at photographs, buy something smaller than they need, and discover the problem three weeks later while trying to type a spreadsheet formula.
This page goes size by size and says what each one costs you. If you want to understand how layouts work first, what the percentages mean and how layers replace missing keys, read keyboard sizes and layouts.
Answer these first
Four questions settle it faster than any amount of browsing.
- Do you type numbers in columns? Accounting, data entry, spreadsheets, anything with a numeric keypad habit. If yes, you want a number pad, and nothing else on this page will change that.
- How often do you use the arrow keys? Be honest. Writers, editors and programmers use them constantly. If you cannot answer, watch yourself for a day.
- Do you use function keys deliberately? F2 to rename, F5 to refresh, F12 for developer tools, or application shortcuts you would notice losing.
- Will you configure it? Small boards only work if you set up layers and learn them. If you want to plug a keyboard in and have it behave, stay at 65 percent or larger.
Full-size, 100 percent
104 keys. Everything.
Nobody in the hobby recommends these and a lot of people should be buying them. If you use a number pad, a full-size board is the correct answer and the aesthetics of the hobby are not a good enough reason to give up a tool you use daily.
The real cost is desk space, and specifically mouse space: a full-size board pushes your mouse further right, which over years is the ergonomic complaint people actually develop. If that is your worry but you need the numbers, look at 1800 instead.
Buy it if: you use a number pad. Skip it if: you do not, because you are paying width for a block you never touch.
1800, or 96 percent
Around 100 keys, in the width of a tenkeyless plus a little.
A full-size layout with the gaps squeezed out, so the number pad sits directly against the arrows and the function row runs edge to edge. You keep everything and lose several centimeters.
The cost is that everything is adjacent, so there are no gaps to navigate by feel, and you will hit the wrong key for the first week. Keycap compatibility is also the worst of any layout here: 1800 boards need key sizes many sets do not include, so check kit availability before committing.
Buy it if: you need the number pad and the desk space. Skip it if: keycap choice matters more to you than width.
Tenkeyless, TKL
87 keys. Full-size minus the number pad.
The safe choice, and the one to default to if nothing else on this page speaks to you. You keep the function row, the full navigation cluster and dedicated arrows, all with the standard gaps, so it feels like the keyboard you already know with a chunk removed. No layers to learn, no compromises to adapt to.
Buy it if: you want no surprises, or you use function and navigation keys and do not need numbers. Skip it if: you want the desk back badly enough to learn something.
75 percent
Around 84 keys. A TKL with the gaps removed.
Everything a TKL has, pushed together: function row along the top, arrows bottom right, and a single column of navigation keys down the right edge. Noticeably narrower than a TKL for the same functionality.
Two costs. The missing gaps mean you locate keys by looking rather than by feel, at least at first. And two different layouts are both sold as 75 percent, one a compressed TKL and one a 65 percent with a function row, so read the photograph rather than the label.
Buy it if: you want a TKL’s keys in less width. Skip it if: you rely on finding Delete or the arrows without looking.
65 percent
Around 68 keys. No function row, arrows kept.
The best compromise on this list for most people, and the size the hobby has largely settled on. You lose the function row, which becomes a layer on the number row, and you keep dedicated arrows plus usually a short column of Delete, Page Up and Page Down. Small enough to change your desk, familiar enough to use immediately.
The cost is the function row, and whether that matters is entirely about your work. If you hit F2 and F5 without thinking, you will notice. If you could not name what F7 does, you will not.
Buy it if: you want small without learning arrow layers. Skip it if: you use function keys deliberately.
60 percent
61 keys. No function row, no arrows.
The classic enthusiast size and the one most custom kits are made for, which means the widest choice of cases, plates and keycaps by a wide margin. If you want to build something rather than buy something, this is the best-supported size.
The cost is arrows on a layer, and this is the real decision point of the whole page. Held-modifier arrows under your right hand are genuinely good once learned, and a fortnight of frustration to get there. If you are not going to configure the board and practice, do not buy a 60 percent. Plenty of people bought one for how it looks and quietly went back to a 65.
Buy it if: you will configure it, or you want the deepest parts selection. Skip it if: you want it to work properly on day one.
40 percent
Around 47 keys. No number row either.
Numbers and most punctuation move to layers. This is not a smaller keyboard so much as a different instrument, and learning it takes weeks during which your typing is bad.
People who use 40s are genuinely enthusiastic about them, and the reasons are real: every key is within reach without moving your hands at all, and the boards are tiny. But this is a second or third keyboard, chosen deliberately by someone who already knows what they want from a layout. It is not a first purchase.
Buy it if: you have used a 60 percent happily and want to go further. Skip it if: this is your first custom board.
Split, Alice and ortholinear
Worth naming here because they answer a different question. If your reason for shopping is wrist or shoulder discomfort rather than desk space or aesthetics, size is the wrong axis: an Alice layout or a split board angles your hands properly, and that has a clearer ergonomic case than any size on this list. Keyboard sizes and layouts covers how they differ.
The short version
| You | Buy |
|---|---|
| Use a number pad | Full-size, or 1800 for the desk space |
| Want zero adaptation | TKL |
| Want smaller, keep arrows | 65 percent |
| Will configure layers, want the most parts | 60 percent |
| Have wrist or shoulder pain | Alice or split, not a smaller board |
| Already happy on a 60 percent | 40 percent |
Two things to keep in mind whatever you pick. Check the keycap compatibility of your chosen layout before you buy a set, particularly the spacebar width. And buy hot-swap on a first board, so the switches are a decision you can revisit rather than one you soldered in place.