Beep Test Levels Chart: Speeds, Distances and Times

The chart on this page runs to 20 levels, which is the schedule this site's app and audio use. You will see other counts published elsewhere, and they are not typos. Topend Sports prints a 21-level table, and Science for Sport describes the test as 23 levels.

The test has no fixed top. Speed starts around 8 to 8.5 km/h and goes up 0.5 km/h every minute, so a publisher can carry the table on as far as it wants. The extra rows sit above level 20, at speeds past 18 km/h, which hardly anyone reaches. Levels 1 to 20 are identical whichever table you use, so a score of 9.3 means the same thing on all of them.

The US PACER version runs to 21 levels rather than 20, and its first minute allows nine seconds a lap, which is 8.0 km/h rather than 8.5. Both figures come from the Cooper Institute's test administration manual. Its score sheet uses the same laps per level as the table above all the way to level 20, so a lap count converts cleanly, but the elapsed times do not line up and the 247-lap ceiling you see quoted is a secondary figure the Cooper Institute does not publish itself. More on how the versions relate on the multi-stage fitness test page.

PACER® and FitnessGram® are registered trademarks of The Cooper Institute. beeptest.net is an independent site and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Cooper Institute.

Running every shuttle of all 20 levels covers 4,620 metres (4.62 km, 2.87 miles): 231 shuttles of 20 metres, each one a single run from line to line. Your own distance is the total distance column above for the level you reach. The beep test distance and time guide breaks it down for common scores and the 15m version.

Running the whole thing takes 20:55, but your test ends when you can no longer keep up with the beep. Each level lasts roughly a minute, so the level number is a fair stand-in for minutes elapsed. How long the beep test takes at each score has its own page, and the setup guide covers what you need before you start.

Level 1 runs at 8.5 km/h (5.3 mph) and every level after it adds 0.5 km/h, up to 18 km/h (11.2 mph) at level 20. The speed is fixed within a level; what changes is how long you get per shuttle, from 8.47 seconds down to 4.00.

For a sense of scale, 13 km/h at level 10 is a 4:37 kilometre pace in a straight line. On the beep test you are also turning around every 5.54 seconds, and the braking and re-accelerating cost far more than the speed alone suggests. That is why treadmill pace targets do not map cleanly onto beep test levels. The treadmill page goes through the conversion and its limits.

Scores are written as Level.Shuttle, so 7.1 is level 7, shuttle 1: the last shuttle you completed before the beep beat you. The number after the dot counts shuttles, it is not a decimal, which is why 7.9 is a real score and 7.11 is not on a level that holds only 10 shuttles.

Scores also do not space out evenly. 7.10 beats 7.9, and level 7 ends after 10 shuttles where level 20 runs to 16. Comparing two scores from different levels is easier with the shuttle count, which is what the lookup tool above gives you.

US schools using the PACER report a single lap total instead of a level and shuttle, and the UK police JRFT writes the same notation with a colon, as in 5:4. Both mean the same thing as level 5, shuttle 4, though the police version is run on a 15-metre course with its own shorter level table.

Whether a level counts as good depends on your age and sex, and the good beep test score by age tables give the average and good bands for every age group from 18 to 65. If you are testing for a job, go by the standard that employer publishes instead, such as 5.4 on the 15-metre course for UK police recruitment.