Your first Wordle guess sets the tone for the whole game. A poor opener can leave you with hundreds of possible answers and very little to work with. A great opener can immediately cut the candidates down to a manageable handful. So which words are actually the best? We break it down by three different criteria: letter frequency, vowel coverage, and information theory.
What Makes a Good Opening Word?
The goal of your first guess is not to get lucky and guess the answer — it's to gather as much information as possible about the letters in today's word. The best opening words share three properties:
- Common letters — they use letters that appear frequently across all Wordle answers
- No repeated letters — repeating a letter in your opener wastes an opportunity to test a new one
- Good vowel coverage — every Wordle answer contains at least one vowel, so testing common vowels early is essential
The five most common letters in Wordle answers are E, A, R, O, and T — in that order. Any strong opening word should ideally contain several of these.
The Top Starting Words, Ranked
| # | Word | Letters covered | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
R A I S E
|
R, A, I, S, E — 4 of the top 6 most common letters | Information-optimal |
| 2 |
C R A N E
|
C, R, A, N, E — covers N which RAISE misses | Fan favourite |
| 3 |
S L A T E
|
S, L, A, T, E — strong consonant-vowel balance | Balanced |
| 4 |
S T A R E
|
S, T, A, R, E — hits 4 of the top 5 letters | Balanced |
| 5 |
A U D I O
|
A, U, D, I, O — tests 4 vowels at once | Vowel-heavy |
| 6 |
R O A T E
|
R, O, A, T, E — mathematically optimal by information theory | Information-optimal |
The Information Theory Approach
Some Wordle analysts take a mathematical approach, measuring each opening word by how much information it gives on average — specifically, by how many bits of entropy it eliminates from the 2,309-word answer list.
By this measure, ROATE is technically the optimal opener — it reduces the remaining candidates by the maximum amount on average. However, ROATE is an obscure word that many players don't know and wouldn't think to use, which is why RAISE and CRANE are more popular choices in practice.
The practical difference between the top openers is small: RAISE, CRANE, SLATE and ROATE all perform within a fraction of a guess of each other in terms of average solve length.
The Vowel-First Strategy
Some players prefer to start with a vowel-heavy word like AUDIO or OUIJA. The logic is sound: since every Wordle answer contains at least one vowel, identifying which vowels are present early creates a useful scaffold for guessing consonants on move two.
The downside is that AUDIO and similar words test only 1–2 common consonants, so your second guess carries a heavier information burden. This strategy works best for experienced players who can quickly map vowel patterns to candidate words.
Two-Guess Openers: The Double Strategy
An increasingly popular approach is to plan your first two guesses as a pair, together covering 8–10 different high-frequency letters before using any feedback at all.
Strong two-guess opener pairs include:
- CRANE + LOUSY — covers C, R, A, N, E, L, O, U, S, Y
- RAISE + CLOUT — covers R, A, I, S, E, C, L, O, U, T
- ADIEU + STORY — heavy vowel coverage plus common consonants
The advantage is that after two guesses you'll have tested 10 letters and identified which are in the answer — giving you very strong information for guess three. The disadvantage is that if the answer is one of your first two guesses, you've already used them.
What to Avoid
- Words with repeated letters (e.g. SPEED, LLAMA) — you waste an opener slot testing the same letter twice
- Rare letters early (Q, Z, X, J) — these appear in very few answers and give little information
- Your lucky word — if you always start with the same obscure word because it once worked, you're not playing optimally
Stuck on today's Wordle?
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If you want one word to start every game: use RAISE. It covers four of the six most common letters in Wordle answers, has no repeated letters, and includes two strong vowels. It's not quite the mathematical optimum, but it's a real word that's easy to remember and consistently strong.
If you want to go deeper and use information theory: start with CRANE, then follow up with a complementary second guess like LOUSY or PILOT regardless of the feedback. After two guesses you'll have tested 10 letters and will almost always find the answer within the next two guesses.
And when you're stuck — whatever your opener — our Wordle Helper is there to filter the remaining candidates based on exactly what you've learned so far.