If you have never played, start with how to play Letterly. Everything below assumes you know the basics: one letter, ten categories, 90 seconds, one answer per category.
What the scoring really rewards
A valid answer is scored by how many players gave the same answer that day. If n players share it, you included, it is worth 100 divided by n to the power 0.85, rounded. That gives 100 points for a unique answer, 55 when two of you gave it, 39 for three, 25 for five, 14 for ten and 8 for twenty.
Notice where the big drops are. Going from one player to three costs you 61 points. Going from three to thirty costs only another 33. So the real prize is not being slightly less common than the crowd, it is landing an answer that only one or two other people found.
The count is not just today's players. For every letter and category we keep a baseline list of the obvious answers and count them as if other players had already given them. On 30 October, letter G, Green for Colour was given by 24 players. Twenty-four players alone would make it worth 7 points, but because Green is on the baseline list the last player to give it scored 3. That is why playing early in the day does not help: the obvious answer is cheap even at one minute past midnight.
The specificity premium
The most reliable way to move up the curve is not to find an obscure answer but to give a more precise version of the obvious one. Matching is done on the whole answer, so a longer, more exact answer is a different answer. On 1 November, letter J:
- Javelin for Olympic sport was given by 25 players and the last of them scored 6 points. Javelin Throw was given by 3 players, worth 39 points each.
- Jam for Picnic item was given by 22 players. Jam sandwich was given by 4, worth 31.
- Jack Daniels for Thing you'd find in a pub was given by 3 players, while Jug was given by 12.
The precise version still has to belong to the category. Every answer is checked automatically for whether it is a real, correctly spelt member of its category. Specific is good; invented is not. For categories that ask for a named person, place, brand, character or work, the check only accepts names it recognises, so a half-remembered footballer or a made-up brand scores nothing.
Prefix families: a quick route to rare answers
With nine seconds per category on average, you need a method rather than inspiration. One that works well is to think first about the words that often begin with the letter, then build answers from them. For S that might be Sea, Sand, San, Sugar and Sticky. For J it might be Jam, Jack, Java and Jungle.
The archive shows how often this produces the rare answers. On 31 October, letter S, one-off answers included Sea snake and Sand boa for Snake, San Salvador for Capital city and Sugar and lemon for Pancake topping. On the J day, Jam sponge and Jam roly poly turned up for Pudding and Jungle green for Colour. None of these are obscure. They are ordinary things that the crowd simply did not reach for first.
What a second on the clock is worth
Submitting early earns a speed bonus of up to 15% of what you scored, scaled by the share of the 90 seconds left. Put another way, every second you leave on the clock is worth your score divided by 600. With a score of 300 before the bonus, each second is worth half a point, so stopping 20 seconds early buys you about 10 points.
Compare that with what an extra answer is worth. Even a common answer earns a few points, a rare one 39 to 55, and completing all ten valid answers adds the 20-point clean sheet bonus on top. The clean sheet counts towards the score that the speed bonus multiplies, too. So the maths is clear:
- Never submit with a blank you could still fill. Filling the last box is usually worth more than the 20 to 40 seconds it takes.
- Once all ten boxes have answers you are happy with, submit straight away. Polishing a decent answer into a slightly better one rarely beats the bonus you are burning.
- The bonus is a percentage, so it can never rescue a weak round. A strong board submitted at the buzzer beats a thin one submitted early.
There is also no penalty for a wrong answer beyond scoring nothing for it. A blank and an invalid answer both score 0 and both cost you the clean sheet, so if you have any plausible answer, write it.
Traps that score zero
- The first written letter is what counts, not the sound. Knife counts for K and Gnome counts for G. An answer that sounds right but is spelt with a different first letter will not score.
- Misspellings score 0. The checker can tell when you were clearly reaching for a real answer and will tell you it looks misspelt, but it still does not score. If you are unsure how to spell something, pick a different answer you can spell.
- The same word only scores once. If you use one answer in two categories, only the first of them counts. On the J day, Jelly fitted both Picnic item and Pudding, and Juice fitted both Picnic item and Thing you'd find in a pub. Give each word one home and find something else for the other box.
- Capitals and punctuation are ignored when answers are matched, so Jack Daniel's and Jack Daniels are the same answer. You cannot make an answer unique by styling it differently.
- Very short answers and nonsense are rejected: anything under two characters, keyboard mashes such as asdf, and strings of one repeated letter.
Handling the hard categories
Some categories are hard for some letters, and those are where rounds are won. On the S day, only 7% of players found a valid answer for Liqueur. When most of the field leaves a box blank or gets it wrong, any correct answer puts you ahead of them, even if it is not rare. It also keeps your clean sheet alive.
The practical approach is two passes. Go through all ten quickly and write anything that comes to you, aiming for the specific version where you can. Then use what is left of the clock on the hardest boxes. Do not sit on one category while easy points go unclaimed further down the list.
Practise with the archive
The Letterly answers archive shows every finished round: the most common answers with how many players gave them, the rare one-off answers, and the share of valid answers for each category. Reading a few rounds for a letter you find hard is a quick way to learn what everyone else reaches for, so you can reach past it. Past rounds can also be played as unranked practice from the archive inside the game.
Quick checklist
- Skip the first answer that comes to mind, or make it more specific.
- Think in prefix families for the day's letter: Sea, Sand, San for S; Jam, Jack, Java for J.
- Fill every box before you think about the clock. A blank costs you the clean sheet.
- Submit as soon as all ten are filled: each second left is worth your score divided by 600.
- Use each word once, spell it correctly and check its first written letter.
- In a hard category, a plain correct answer beats most of the field.
If you enjoy the originality scoring, Rarest works the same way with one prompt and up to five answers. For a different kind of challenge, read our Cluster strategy guide or browse all our daily games.