Daily Crosswords
Play today's Gram Slam
A free alternative to NYT Spelling Bee
Seven letters, one in the middle, and every word you can make — free all the way to the top rank.
Spelling Bee is the NYT game people describe as "just one more word" until it is midnight. Its catch is the paywall: without a NYT Games subscription, the free play stops partway up the ranks, right when it gets interesting.
Gram Slam plays the same way — seven letters, a required centre letter, words of four letters or more, bonus points for the pangram that uses all seven — and there is no point at which it asks you to pay. Today's puzzle is free from Beginner to the final rank. It is the same daily Gram Slam the Daily Crosswords & Word Games iPhone app serves.
Side by side
| Gram Slam | NYT Spelling Bee | |
|---|---|---|
| Letters | 7, centre letter required | 7, centre letter required |
| Minimum word | 4 letters | 4 letters |
| Scoring | 1 point per letter, +7 for a pangram | 1 point for 4-letter words, then 1 per letter, +7 for a pangram |
| Today's puzzle | Free to the top rank | Free until a mid rank, then subscription |
| Account required | No | Yes, to keep progress |
| Past puzzles | In the app: from $0.99/month, 7-day free trial | Subscription required |
| Word list | 50,000-word dictionary | Curated by the editor |
| Hints | Rank progress bar | Daily hints page, with a subscription |
NYT details reflect nytimes.com as best we understand it and may change; check there for current terms.
What's the same
Almost everything that makes the format addictive: the seven-letter honeycomb, the one letter that has to appear in every word, the hunt for the pangram, and a rank ladder that turns "I'm done" into "just one more". Progress saves automatically so you can put it down and come back.
What's different
- No paywall inside the puzzle. You can chase the top rank every day without paying anything.
- A bigger dictionary. Gram Slam checks words against a 50,000-word list rather than a hand-curated one, so obscure-but-real words count. The trade-off is that the higher ranks are genuinely demanding.
- No account. Today's grid, your score and your streak live in your browser.
If you also like…
There are four more free daily puzzles alongside Gram Slam: a 5×5 Mini, a 15×15 Crossword, Word Lapse (a 90-second Boggle-style word hunt) and Sudoku in three difficulties. The iPhone app adds a sixth, Mind Reader, plus the archive and 14,500 more puzzles.
Daily Crosswords & Word Games is an independent app and website. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by The New York Times Company. "The New York Times", "Spelling Bee" and "NYT Games" are trademarks of The New York Times Company and are used here only to identify the products being compared.