Spelling Bee scoring and the Genius threshold
Every Spelling Bee word earns points, but not in the way most players expect: a four-letter word is worth a single point, while a pangram carries a bonus that can swing a whole rank. This page lays out the full points table, every rank threshold, and the exact math behind Genius and Queen Bee.
The points table
Scoring has exactly three rules, and every point in the game comes from one of them.
Four-letter words score 1 point. Not 4 points: the shortest words in the game are worth a flat single point each, no matter which letters they use.
Longer words score 1 point per letter. A five-letter word scores 5 points, a six-letter word scores 6, a seven-letter word scores 7, and so on, one point for every letter in the word.
A pangram scores its length plus 7 bonus points. A pangram is a word that uses all seven hive letters at least once. A seven-letter pangram scores 7 + 7 = 14 points, and an eight-letter pangram scores 8 + 7 = 15 points.
Two real boards show the table at work. On Wednesday, October 28, 2026, the pangram OBLIGED has seven letters, so it scored 14 points, while the longest ordinary word, ILLEGIBLE at nine letters, scored 9. The board held fifteen four-letter words worth 1 point each, 15 points in total, so a single pangram was worth almost as much as every short word on the board combined. On Tuesday, October 27, 2026, the pangram PAYPHONE has eight letters and scored 15 points.
Every rank, and what it takes
Your rank is set by your score as a share of the total points on that day's board, not by how many words you have found. The shares never change; the point targets move every day because every board has a different total. The ten ranks are:
Beginner at 0 percent. Good Start at 2 percent. Moving Up at 5 percent. Good at 8 percent. Solid at 15 percent. Nice at 25 percent. Great at 40 percent. Amazing at 50 percent. Genius at 70 percent. Queen Bee at 100 percent, which means finding every accepted word on the board.
On a board worth 200 points in total, those shares land on round numbers: Good Start at 4 points, Moving Up at 10, Good at 16, Solid at 30, Nice at 50, Great at 80, Amazing at 100, Genius at 140, and Queen Bee at the full 200. Real boards are rarely that tidy, which is where the rounding rule below comes in.
Genius, in real numbers
Genius takes 70 percent of the board's total points, rounded down to a whole number. The rounding is easy to prove from real boards. On Monday, October 26, 2026, the board was worth 245 points in total, and 70 percent of 245 is 171.5 - the game's Genius line sat at 171 points, the rounded-down figure. On Wednesday, October 28, 2026, the board held 71 words worth 355 points, and Genius sat at 248 points. On the small board of Tuesday, October 27, 2026 - 29 words, 116 points - Genius took only 81 points.
That spread is the point of the percentage system: Genius is a hard day's solve on a small board and a long haul on a big one, but it always asks for the same share of the board. Two players comparing Genius streaks are comparing the same achievement, whatever the letters were.
Genius counts points, not words. A player who finds the pangram and the long words can reach Genius with words to spare, while a player who collects only short words can find more words and still sit at Amazing. When you are chasing the line, hunt length first and let the short words fill the gaps.
Pangrams and Queen Bee
What a pangram is. A word that uses all seven letters of the hive at least once. Every board is built with at least one pangram in it, and some boards have two or three. Letters can repeat inside the word, so a pangram can run longer than seven letters.
Why the pangram matters so much. The 7 point bonus makes a pangram the highest-scoring single play on most boards, and because Genius is a share of the total, the pangram's points count toward the target twice over in spirit: they raise your score faster than any other word you can find.
What Queen Bee is. Queen Bee is the rank above Genius, and it is not a points target at all: it means you found every accepted word on the board, short and long, for 100 percent of the points. Genius at 70 percent is the target most players aim at each day; Queen Bee means nothing was left behind.
Common questions
How many points is a five-letter word?
5 points. From five letters up, a word scores one point per letter, so a six-letter word scores 6 points and a nine-letter word scores 9. Only four-letter words break the pattern, at a flat 1 point.
How many points do I need for Genius today?
Take 70 percent of today's total points and round down. Our daily Spelling Bee page does the math for you: it lists the board's total points and the Genius line next to the pangram and the full word list, behind the usual spoiler gates.
Does finding more words always beat finding longer words?
No. Points decide your rank, and one nine-letter word at 9 points is worth nine four-letter words. Word count only becomes the whole game at Queen Bee, where every single word is required.
Can a pangram be worth more than 14 points?
Yes. The bonus is always 7, but the base score is the word's length, so a ten-letter pangram scores 10 + 7 = 17 points. PAYPHONE, the October 27, 2026 pangram, scored 15 at eight letters.