Does this tool tell me the single best starter word?

No. There is no single perfect starter for every situation, and different metrics favour different words. This tool focuses on simple coverage: how many common letters and positions a word touches. It is meant to help you compare reasonable candidates, not crown an absolute winner.

Why do you use the answer list instead of all guesses?

We care most about letters that appear in actual Wordle answers, not obscure guess-only words. Using the answer list for the charts keeps everything focused on patterns that matter for real solutions. The frequencies you see here match the same answer set we use for our pattern lists and Word Finder.

What does the coverage score mean in the comparison?

The coverage score is a simple weighted sum of how often each letter in your starter appears overall and in its specific slot across the official answer list. Higher scores mean the starter spends more of its five letters on high-frequency positions. It’s not a probability of winning, just a quick way to gauge information density.

Can I use non-answer words as starters here?

Yes. The comparison panel scores any word that is valid in the official Wordle game (answer or allowed guess). The underlying letter frequencies still come from the answer list only, so you are always comparing your chosen starters against how real solutions behave, not just dictionary filler.

Wordle Letter Frequency & Starter Explorer

Curious why everyone talks about SLATE, CRANE, TRACE or SOARE as starter words? This explorer shows which letters and slots are most common in the official Wordle answer list and lets you compare two opening guesses to see how well they cover the high‑value alphabet.

Once you've picked a favourite starter, use the Word Finder to feed in your greens and yellows, the Hard Mode Helper to check individual guesses, and the Trap Trainer to practise tricky endgames like _ATCH and _IGHT. On days where the board feels unforgiving, finish with the Daily Hints tool to get a structured, spoiler‑free path toward the answer.

Today's official NYT puzzle is Wordle #1674 for Jan 18, 2026. It sits around difficulty 7/10 in our answer list and is tagged with general vocabulary. Use that as a rough feel for whether today's board leans more toward everyday language or a specific theme. If you're actively solving that puzzle, you can jump straight to today's Wordle hints for Jan 18, 2026 (Puzzle #1674) or open the dedicated hints page for Jan 18, 2026 once you're ready for structured help.

Wordle Letter Frequency & Starter Explorer

Loading today's puzzle context…

Compare starter words head‑to‑head

Type any two valid 5‑letter Wordle words (answers or guesses) into the tiles below to see how many unique letters they use and how much of the high‑frequency alphabet they actually cover. Higher coverage scores mean the starter spends more of its letters on useful positions.

Starter A

98.1

5 unique letters • coverage score 98.1

Starter B

96.2

5 unique letters • coverage score 96.2

SLATE edges out CRANE on this simple coverage metric. It spends more of its letters on high‑frequency positions in the answer list.

Letter frequency reference

These charts use the official Wordle answer list only. Use them to see which letters show up most often overall and in each slot, and to understand why certain starters tend to perform well.

Position heatmap (top letters per slot)

Letter	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
A	6.2%	14.8%	11.1%	6.4%	3.2%
B	7.6%	0.7%	2.7%	1.1%	0.6%
C	8.5%	1.7%	2.7%	5.3%	1.2%
D	4.9%	1.0%	3.7%	2.6%	11.3%
E	2.9%	10.2%	6.6%	20.7%	15.7%
F	5.6%	0.3%	1.2%	1.4%	1.0%
G	4.9%	0.5%	3.0%	3.0%	1.7%
H	3.5%	5.4%	0.6%	1.2%	5.0%
I	1.4%	10.1%	10.2%	6.4%	0.7%
J	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	—
K	1.2%	0.4%	1.4%	2.7%	4.0%
L	4.1%	7.3%	5.2%	6.0%	5.6%
M	4.9%	1.7%	3.1%	3.1%	1.7%
N	1.7%	3.6%	6.3%	6.8%	5.0%
O	1.9%	14.0%	9.2%	5.4%	2.8%
P	6.5%	2.2%	3.2%	2.4%	2.7%
Q	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	—	—
R	4.7%	9.7%	7.5%	6.0%	8.8%
S	13.9%	0.8%	3.5%	6.5%	1.9%
T	6.3%	2.8%	5.7%	5.5%	9.2%
U	1.6%	8.6%	6.3%	3.5%	0.2%
V	1.7%	0.6%	2.2%	1.7%	—
W	3.5%	1.7%	1.4%	0.9%	0.6%
X	0.0%	0.6%	0.9%	0.1%	0.4%
Y	0.4%	0.9%	1.2%	0.2%	16.4%
Z	0.2%	0.1%	0.8%	1.0%	0.3%

Most common letters (overall)

49.1% of answers

38.6% of answers

34.2% of answers

29.7% of answers

27.8% of answers

27.0% of answers

25.7% of answers

24.7% of answers

22.4% of answers

21.7% of answers

How these letter frequencies work

This explorer uses the official NYT Wordle answer list only (over 3,200 five-letter solutions), the same list that powers our Word Finder and Daily Hints tools. For each answer, we track which letters appear at all and how often they appear in each of the 5 slots. The overall chart counts how many answers contain a letter at least once; the position heatmap shows, slot by slot, how often that letter appears in that exact position across the whole list.

How to use this with starter words

Good Wordle starters tend to do two things: cover several high-frequency letters and place them in slots where they are actually common. The comparison panel lets you enter two candidate starters and see, in a rough way, how much of the highly-used alphabet and positions they touch. Words that spread out across common consonants and vowels tend to get more information per guess, especially when they also line up with patterns you see in our single-letter and two-letter list hubs.

This is not a full entropy calculator or solver. Instead, it is a human-readable way to sanity-check starter options like SLATE, CRANE, TRACE, or SOARE, and understand why they show up so often in strategy discussions.

Wordle Letter Frequency & Starter FAQ

Does this tool tell me the single best starter word?: No. There is no single perfect starter for every situation, and different metrics favour different words. This tool focuses on simple coverage: how many common letters and positions a word touches. It is meant to help you compare reasonable candidates, not crown an absolute winner.
Why do you use the answer list instead of all guesses?: We care most about letters that appear in actual Wordle answers, not obscure guess-only words. Using the answer list for the charts keeps everything focused on patterns that matter for real solutions. The frequencies you see here match the same answer set we use for our pattern lists and Word Finder.
What does the coverage score mean in the comparison?: The coverage score is a simple weighted sum of how often each letter in your starter appears overall and in its specific slot across the official answer list. Higher scores mean the starter spends more of its five letters on high-frequency positions. It’s not a probability of winning, just a quick way to gauge information density.
Can I use non-answer words as starters here?: Yes. The comparison panel scores any word that is valid in the official Wordle game (answer or allowed guess). The underlying letter frequencies still come from the answer list only, so you are always comparing your chosen starters against how real solutions behave, not just dictionary filler.