Wordle research

Wordle Letter Frequency, Overall and by Position

How often each letter appears across all 1,352 Wordle answers, and crucially, where in the word. The positional pattern is what separates a strong opener from a wasted guess.

Updated July 2026

The letter-by-position heatmap

Each row is a letter, each column a position (1 = first letter). Darker cells mean the letter is more common at that position. Read down a column to see what tends to fill each slot. Read across a row to see where a letter likes to sit.

Letter frequency by position across 1,352 Wordle answers.
Letter	Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5
a	77	226	169	88	51
b	107	5	27	21	5
c	111	17	34	75	14
d	67	13	42	60	87
e	40	160	104	248	197
f	77	3	8	12	9
g	47	5	40	33	17
h	42	83	6	19	62
i	22	144	132	95	9
j	23		2
k	23	4	19	39	39
l	72	95	94	92	63
m	73	17	39	36	15
n	27	35	110	106	82
o	23	210	124	65	34
p	76	27	26	28	10
q	10	2		2
r	59	134	114	89	93
s	169	15	47	69	331
t	102	35	68	96	106
u	15	81	65	33	1
v	22	5	37	20
w	54	14	10	13	6
x	2	6	14	1	9
y	11	14	15	7	111
z	1	2	6	5	1

Letter frequency by position across 1,352 Wordle answers. Columns are positions (1 = first letter); darker means the letter is more common at that position.

Reading the heatmap with real words

The numbers are easier to feel on an actual grid. In the examples below, a greentile marks a letter that is among the three most common at that position. It is a frequency highlight, not Wordle’s usual feedback.

Take the single most common letter in each of the five positions and you get this template, the “average” shape of a Wordle answer:

The most common letter in each position: S · A · A · E · S. Not a real word, just the per-position favourites (S leads the start, E the middle, S the end).

SAINT lands a top-three letter in four of the five positions, a strong, common shape that makes an efficient guess.

JUMBO matches none of the most common letters: rarer letters (J, M, B) sitting in unlikely positions, so it reveals far less.

Overall letter frequency

Counting every letter in every answer, this is how often each one appears (as a share of all letter slots). The top of this list is the alphabet your opener should be built from.

e11.1%
s9.3%
a9.0%
r7.2%
o6.7%
l6.2%
t6.0%
i5.9%
n5.3%
d4.0%
c3.7%
h3.1%

What this means for strategy

The first and last positions are heavily skewed, most answers start with S and end with S or a small set of common letters, while the middle positions are more evenly spread. The practical takeaway: open with high-frequency letters placed where they commonly occur, and spend your guesses probing the unpredictable middle. That is exactly what the highest-entropy openers do. See the best Wordle starting words and the maths on the entropy page. When you are mid-puzzle, the Wordle Solver applies all of this automatically.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common letter in Wordle?

E is the most common letter across all Wordle answers. The vowels E and A and the consonants R, T, L and S also appear very frequently, which is why the strongest opening words are built from them.

What letter do most Wordle answers start with?

Most answers start with S. S dominates the first position by a wide margin, followed by letters like C, B, T and P.

What letter do most Wordle answers end with?

The most common final letter is S. Endings are noticeably concentrated: E, Y, T, R and the plural-style S account for a large share of last letters.

How many vowels does a typical Wordle answer have?

About 1.78 on average. Most answers contain one or two vowels, so spreading three or four vowels across your opener tends to waste guesses.

Which positions are most predictable?

The first and last positions are the most skewed: a handful of letters cover most answers there. The middle positions, especially the second and third, are more evenly spread, which makes them harder to pin down and more valuable to test.

What letters should I guess first?

Lead with the high-frequency letters this data highlights, S, E, A, R, T, L and O, placed where they commonly occur. That is exactly what the top entropy openers do. See the best starting words page.

What is the rarest letter in Wordle answers?

Q is the rarest, appearing in only a tiny fraction of answers. Q, J, X and Z are also very rare, so guessing them early is usually a poor trade.

Does this data change?

The figures are tallied from the current curated answer set and update whenever that set changes. The broad patterns (S-heavy starts, E-heavy ends, R/T/L-rich middles) are very stable.

Letter	Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5
a	77	226	169	88	51
b	107	5	27	21	5
c	111	17	34	75	14
d	67	13	42	60	87
e	40	160	104	248	197
f	77	3	8	12	9
g	47	5	40	33	17
h	42	83	6	19	62
i	22	144	132	95	9
j	23		2
k	23	4	19	39	39
l	72	95	94	92	63
m	73	17	39	36	15
n	27	35	110	106	82
o	23	210	124	65	34
p	76	27	26	28	10
q	10	2		2
r	59	134	114	89	93
s	169	15	47	69	331
t	102	35	68	96	106
u	15	81	65	33	1
v	22	5	37	20
w	54	14	10	13	6
x	2	6	14	1	9
y	11	14	15	7	111
z	1	2	6	5	1

Letter	Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5
a	77	226	169	88	51
b	107	5	27	21	5
c	111	17	34	75	14
d	67	13	42	60	87
e	40	160	104	248	197
f	77	3	8	12	9
g	47	5	40	33	17
h	42	83	6	19	62
i	22	144	132	95	9
j	23		2
k	23	4	19	39	39
l	72	95	94	92	63
m	73	17	39	36	15
n	27	35	110	106	82
o	23	210	124	65	34
p	76	27	26	28	10
q	10	2		2
r	59	134	114	89	93
s	169	15	47	69	331
t	102	35	68	96	106
u	15	81	65	33	1
v	22	5	37	20
w	54	14	10	13	6
x	2	6	14	1	9
y	11	14	15	7	111
z	1	2	6	5	1

Letter	Position 1	Position 2	Position 3	Position 4	Position 5
a	77	226	169	88	51
b	107	5	27	21	5
c	111	17	34	75	14
d	67	13	42	60	87
e	40	160	104	248	197
f	77	3	8	12	9
g	47	5	40	33	17
h	42	83	6	19	62
i	22	144	132	95	9
j	23		2
k	23	4	19	39	39
l	72	95	94	92	63
m	73	17	39	36	15
n	27	35	110	106	82
o	23	210	124	65	34
p	76	27	26	28	10
q	10	2		2
r	59	134	114	89	93
s	169	15	47	69	331
t	102	35	68	96	106
u	15	81	65	33	1
v	22	5	37	20
w	54	14	10	13	6
x	2	6	14	1	9
y	11	14	15	7	111
z	1	2	6	5	1