How to Choose the Right Standing Desk Height

The right standing desk height comes down to one measurement that most buyers skip: your elbow height when standing relaxed, with your upper arms hanging naturally by your sides. Get this one number right and everything else about desk ergonomics tends to fall into place.

Quick answer: stand naturally, bend your elbows to roughly 90 degrees, and set the desktop level with your forearms. Use our height chart below as a starting point by your own height, then fine-tune once the desk is set up in your actual space.

The elbow test, step by step

Stand naturally in your usual shoes (or barefoot, if that's how you'll work) and bend your elbows to about 90 degrees, as if you were about to type. The desktop should sit roughly level with your forearms — not so high that your shoulders shrug upward to reach the keyboard, and not so low that your wrists bend downward to type. This single test accounts for individual differences in torso and arm length that a generic height chart can't.

Rough height guide by user height

As a starting point before fine-tuning: around 96–101cm suits someone 155–165cm tall, 101–107cm suits 165–175cm, and 107–113cm suits 175–185cm, with taller users around 185–195cm generally sitting in the 113–119cm range. These are starting points, not rules — always adjust with the elbow test once the desk is actually in front of you, since torso-to-leg proportions vary a lot between people of the same height.

Don't forget the sitting height

A good sit-stand desk needs a comfortable low end too, and this is where a lot of buyers get caught out focusing only on the maximum standing height. Check the minimum height listed on any desk against your own seated elbow height before buying, particularly if you're on the shorter side — some budget desks simply don't go low enough for comfortable sitting, which defeats the purpose of a desk that's meant to do both.

Monitor height still matters at both positions

Whatever desk height you land on, keep the top of your monitor at or just below eye level, and roughly 50–70cm from your face, at both your sitting and standing heights. A monitor arm makes this far easier to get right consistently, since it lets you fine-tune screen height and distance independently of the desk itself rather than compromising on one position to suit the other.

When to re-check your setup

Re-run the elbow test any time you change chairs, footwear you regularly work in, or add a footrest, since any of these shift your effective sitting or standing height by a couple of centimetres — enough to matter for comfort over a full workday even though it seems trivial in isolation.