Reference

Is NYT Strands free to play?

What the daily puzzle costs, what a subscription adds, and where the two separate.

NYT Strands is free to play and needs no New York Times subscription. The New York Times Help Center states that Strands “does not require a New York Times subscription to play on all platforms” — the word currently in that sentence is the publisher’s, not ours. One distinction resolves almost every question in this area: the daily puzzle is free, and the archive that holds every past puzzle is a paid subscriber feature. Below: what a subscription adds, the three places the game is playable, why there is only one board a day, what the archive costs, what the “unlimited” sites actually are, and how archive play moves your statistics.

Does Strands need a New York Times subscription?

No subscription is required to play the daily Strands puzzle. A New York Times Games subscription adds three things rather than unlocking the game itself: the Strands archive, the effect archive play has on your recorded statistics, and the rest of the Games catalogue. The Help Center is explicit that the requirement does not exist today, and it is worth reading that sentence as a statement about the present rather than a promise about next year.

Where can you play Strands for free?

Three surfaces carry the puzzle, and the one you choose changes what you can reach.

• The New York Times site — Strands sits at nytimes.com/games/strands and plays in a browser with no app installed.
• The NYT Games app — carries Strands alongside the other daily puzzles, and is the surface the archive opens in for subscribers.
• The Games section of the NYT News app — carries the daily puzzle, but the Times notes that the archive is not available in the News app’s Play tab.

Can you play Strands more than once a day?

One new Strands puzzle is published each day, so there is one new board a day and no second daily puzzle. Playing more than one board in a sitting therefore means reaching backwards rather than forwards, and reaching backwards means the archive — which is where the free line ends.

What does the Strands archive cost?

The Strands archive is open to All Access, Home Delivery and Games subscribers, and it holds every puzzle back to March 4, 2024. Three documented conditions come with it, and they matter more than the price does.

• Archive play moves four statistics — Completed, Solve %, Spangram First and Solved Without Hints.
• Archive play does not move streaks. Current and maximum streaks count only puzzles played on the day they were released.
• A completed puzzle cannot be replayed, in the archive or anywhere else.

Two different wants hide inside the same question. Replaying an old board needs the subscription. Reading what an old board was — its theme clue, its spangram, its answers and the position of every word on the grid — needs nothing, and every puzzle back to March 2024 is on this site.

Are the “Strands unlimited” sites the real game?

The sites offering unlimited, unblocked or endless Strands are third-party clones, not the New York Times game. One of them, ranking today for people searching how to play Strands free online, tells its readers there are “up to three hints available per puzzle” — which contradicts the Times’ own documented rule that every three non-theme words unlock another hint, with no cap on how many you can earn. A clone that misstates the hint rule is not a copy of the game; it is a different game wearing the name. This site records the real puzzle and does not host a copy of it.

Will Strands stay free?

Nobody outside The New York Times can answer that, and the Times has not said. Its documentation says Strands currently does not require a subscription, and a hedge word inside a publisher’s own sentence is evidence about today rather than a commitment about tomorrow. The honest reading is that the daily puzzle is free now and that no announcement exists either way.

Can you play Strands on your phone?

Strands plays on a phone through the New York Times Games app on iOS and Android, and through the Games section of the News app. Both carry the daily puzzle at no cost. The News app is the one exception worth remembering: its Play tab does not open the archive, so a subscriber reaching for an old board needs the Games app or the website.

Do archive puzzles count towards your Strands stats?

Archive puzzles count towards your statistics and not towards your streaks. The New York Times records six figures — Completed, Solve %, Current Streak, Max Streak, Spangram First and Solved Without Hints — from July 8, 2025 onwards. Playing an archive board moves the first, fifth and sixth of those and leaves both streaks untouched, because streaks are counted only from the puzzle released that day. Which half of that you care about decides whether the archive is worth a subscription to you.

What is Strands Sidekick?

Strands Sidekick is The New York Times’ own community forum for the daily puzzle, free for everyone to read, carrying hints, comments and a difficulty score, and reached from the light-bulb icon while playing. The Times warns that its comments may contain spoilers. It is the publisher’s free hint surface, and the difficulty score it shows is a community reading rather than a measurement — this site publishes a computed difficulty index instead, scored from board geometry across every puzzle ever published.

Questions about playing Strands free