Wordle Statistics, Facts, & Strategies (2024) | Photutorial (2024)

I have analyzed 530 million Wordles. The analysis includes the average number of attempts required to complete the game, the most effective starting words, and user demographics.

Please note that the information provided is the property of Photutorial and the researcher (Matic Broz), and it can be used only if cited appropriately. If you have any additional questions or require further statistics, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Top Wordle Statistics

• Wordle was created byJosh Wardle in 2013, made publicly available in October 2021, and acquired by The New York Times Company in January 2022.
• Wordle has around3 millionplayers worldwide, but the number is declining.
• Wordle has2,308possible answers and12,545allowed guesses.
• Theglobal averagefor solving Wordle is3.83 guesses, withSwedenbeing the best country (3.72) and Egypt the worst (4.42).
• Thebest word to start with is “SALET”, followed by “CRATE”, “TRACE”, “SLATE”, and “REAST”.
• The theoreticallybest scoreusing an algorithm utilizing information theory is3.42for the entire database of words.
• On average, around 8.6% of people play world on hard mode (meaning you must use revealed hints in subsequent guesses).

Average Wordle Score

The average Wordle score is 3.83 turns. Most players finish the game in four attempts (37.27%), followed by three attempts (24.86%), and five attempts (22.55%). Only 2.65% of games end without a solution, which means that a player was unable to guess the correct answer within six turns.

Success rates by attempt:

• 1st: 0.08%
• 2nd: 4.61%
• 3rd: 24.68%
• 4th: 37.27%
• 5th: 24.86%
• 6th: 7.98%
• Losses: 2.65%

Possible guesses

Wordle has exactly 14,855 allowed guesses as of checked date: Jan 22, 2024. However, most of these words are very uncommon, such as “aahed”, “aalii”, and “aargh”. Wordle also currently has 2,309 possible answers, which is a human-curated list. This means that only 15.54% of allowed guesses are also possible answers.

At least 2x more first-guess winners than expected

Wordle used to have 12,546 possible words and 2,309 potential answers until recently. This meant that the chance of guessing the correct answer on the first try was about 0.04% if you knew the possible answers, and 0.007% if you didn’t. However, I have observed that around 0.08% of Wordles are solved on the first try, and even the NYTimes reported that 1 in 250 games is solved on the first try, which is equivalent to 0.4%.

NYTimes suggests that some Wordle players use a new window to make additional guesses after failing six attempts. Others enter a solution from a different device to keep their streak or test a technical issue. Some have had the answer spoiled and a few may have looked it up. James P. Dilger, a Photutorial reader, wrote a scientific paper on Wordle and cheating in this game.

Average Wordle score by country

Sweden is home to the best Wordle players, who complete daily puzzles with, on average, just 3.72 guesses. Sweden is followed by Switzerland (3.78) in second place and Poland (3.79) in third place. Australia, Belgium, and Finland tied for fourth place with a score of 3.80. Denmark, Brazil, South Africa, and Israel round out the top ten.

Egypt is the worst country in the world, with an average of 4.42 guesses. The U.S. also scores lower (3.92) than the global average of 4.016 guesses, despite Wordle using American English.

1. Sweden (3.72)
2. Switzerland (3.78)
3. Poland (3.79)
4. Australia (3.80)
5. Belgium (3.80)
6. Finland (3.81)
7. Brazil (3.83)
8. Denmark (3.83)
9. South Africa (3.83)
10. Israel (3.84)

Average Wordle score by city

Australian cities perform the best across the global Wordle scene, with Canberra scoring the highest at 3.58 on average. Following Canberra is Jerusalem, Israel, at 3.63 and Malmö, Sweden, at 3.66.

1. Canberra, Australia: 3.58
2. Jerusalem, Israel: 3.63
3. Malmö, Sweden: 3.66
4. Durban, South Africa: 3.66
5. Paris, France: 3.69
6. Perth, Australia: 3.70
7. Melbourne: Australia: 3.70
8. Adelaide, Australia: 3.71
9. Manila, Philippines: 3.72
10. Geneva, Switzerland: 3.72

Average Wordle score by states

North Dakota has the lowest average of just 3.65, followed by Delaware at 3.70. The word American state is Alaska, with an average score of 4.22.

1. North Dakota: 3.65
2. Delaware: 3.70
3. New Hampshire: 3.73
4. South Dakota: 3.79
5. Alabama: 3.81
6. Minnesota: 3.83
7. New York: 3.84
8. Maryland: 3.86
9. Washington: 3.88
10. Tennessee: 3.89

Average Wordle score by US cities

St Paul, Minnesota, is by far the best US city at playing Wordle, with an average score of 3.51.

1. St. Paul, MN: 3.51
2. Reading, PA: 3.56
3. Ann Arbor, MI: 3.59
4. Berkeley, CA: 3.61
5. Malden, MA: 3.62
6. Tulsa, OK: 3.62
7. Richmond, VA: 3.63
8. Portsmouth, NH: 3.64
9. Waukesha, WI: 3.64
10. Nashville, TN: 3.66

The Best Opening Words

The topic of the best opening words for Wordle is highly debated. Some words are considered best for human players due to how our brains work, while others are considered best in theory, meaning if a computer played the game. However, some people argue that it’s not fun to always start with the optimal word and prefer to choose a different one each time.

ADIEU is the most popular but least efficient starting word

In their analysis, NYTimes found that ADIEU is the most popular starting word by a large margin (8%), followed by STARE (4.3%), SLATE (3.9%), and AUDIO (3.6%).

These words are so popular because they have many common vowels like “A” and “E”, making it easier for a human to guess. Personally, I use CRATE and LEARN a lot.

However, the NYTimes found that players who started with ADIEU needed a third of a turn more to solve Wordles compared to players who started with SLATE—the word NYTimes found to be the best to start with. Also, the players starting with ADIEU had more than double the chance to fail (3.6%) compared to those who started with SLATE (1.7%).

SALET is the best opening word, for a computer

Using information theory, it’s possible to achieve much better Wordle scores. Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering and is based on the concept of information entropy, a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The main goal of information theory is to provide a mathematical framework for quantifying information and designing efficient communication systems.

Grant Sanderson, from the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channels, made two videos (video 1, video 2) where he applied this theory to find the best opening words and to empirically find the lowest average Wordle score.

Using SALET as the starting word and applying the information theory all the way through, you’ll achieve the following scores for all the possible answers:

• 1st: 0.04%
• 2nd: 3.45%
• 3rd: 52.89%
• 4th: 41.67%
• 5th: 1.94%

Jonathan Olson shares on his website the best opening words for various scenarios, including fastest average, fewest 5+, and for hard mode Wordle. SALET is the opening word for fastest average and hard mode, while RANCE works the best for the fewest 5+ scores. On the other hand, NYTime’s Wordlebot found that using SLATE instead of TRACE gives it a tiny improvement.

Brief History of Wordle

Wordle is a daily word game created by Josh Wardle (“Wordle” is a play on his last name), a software engineer from Brooklyn. In 2013, Wardle made a prototype of the game, which he later refined in 2021 with the help of his partner, Palak Shah. Shah reviewed the English language’s 12,000 five-letter words and narrowed them down to 2,500 commonly-known words that could be used in the game’s daily puzzles.

Initially, only Wardle’s family played the game, but it was made publicly available in October 2021 on his website, powerlanguage.co.uk. Within a month, the game had 90 players, and by the following month, it had over two million daily players. In January 2022, the game was acquired by The New York Times Company.

First-Guess Success Rates

Here, we compare the success rate of Wordle’s first guess (first row).

• Green: On the first try, people most accurately guess the 5th letter (11.75%), followed by the 3rd (10.62%), 2nd (9.28%), 1st (8.32%), and 4th (7.95%). These statistics account for the letters in the word and the correct spot.
• Yellow: The most commonly guessed in the wrong spot is the 3rd letter (30.59%), followed by the 5th (29.72%), 2nd (28.73%), 4th (27.75%), and 1st (23.69%).
• Grey: The least guessed letter is the 1st letter (67.99%), followed by the 4th (64.31%), 2nd (61.99%), 3rd (58.79%), and 5th (58.53%).

Here’s the table with all data about the first-guess success rate per letter: