🪜 Daily Word Ladder

Turn one word into another, one letter at a time.

Invented by Lewis Carroll, a word ladder asks you to climb from one word to another — CAT to DOG in three steps (CAT → COT → DOT → DOG) — changing exactly one letter per rung, every rung a real word. DailyGrid's Ladder deals from precomputed decks of hundreds of thousands of verified word pairs, so your daily climb is always solvable and never repeats.

▶ Play today's Word Ladder — free How to play & strategy Ladder strategy: both ends & hubs

How DailyGrid's Word Ladder works

🗓️ A fresh puzzle every day at midnight Eastern — and it never repeats: every puzzle is checked against everything we've published.
📈 Difficulty ramps with the week: par is 3–4 steps on easy days, 4–5 midweek, and 5–7 on hard days.
💸 The daily puzzles are free. Always. No subscription, no account, no locked boards.

Tips

Work from both ends. Change the end word toward the start as well as the start toward the end.
Pivot on vowels. Most climbs turn on swapping a vowel to unlock new consonant frames.
Beat par, don't just finish. Your score improves when you match or beat the target step count.

Word ladders are one of ten DailyGrid games — and with decks this size, you'll never climb the same pair twice.

📬 Get the daily set by email The free daily email lands at 7 AM ET with today's puzzles. Sign up on the homepage — ten seconds, unsubscribe anytime.

More daily puzzles

Free Sudoku · Daily Cryptogram · Free Mini Crossword · Daily Nonogram · Daily Kakuro · Daily Slitherlink · Daily Hashi · Daily Word Search · Daily Minesweeper · Daily Word Games · All ten free daily puzzles

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