Best Crossword Makers for Teachers in 2026, Compared

The best crossword maker for a teacher is the one that gets a printable worksheet and its answer key out of the door before first period, and then lets you reuse it online if you want. Grid Genius does both free, adds AI generation, and prints anti-copying class sets on Pro. Crossword Labs is the cleanest free option with no ads. BrightSprout and Wordwall are the paid picks if you want students to solve on screens with results back to you.

We checked every maker below on its own website on 4 November 2026. If a price or feature was not on an official page, we leave it out rather than guess. For the step-by-step on building one puzzle, see our crossword puzzle maker guide for teachers. This page compares the tools.

The short version

• Best free all-rounder: Grid Genius. Word list maker with no account, AI puzzles from a topic, PDF with an answer key, a share link for students, and class sets on Pro.
• Best no-ads free maker: Crossword Labs. Paste words, print or export to PDF or Word, with no ads, no watermark and no sign-up.
• Best for auto-graded online solving: BrightSprout (formerly My Crossword Maker), from $5 a month after a 30-day trial.
• Best if your school already uses Wordwall: Wordwall, where Crossword is one of the Pro templates.
• Best for printable packs across puzzle types: WordMint, with over 300,000 ready-made puzzles to adapt.

What a teacher needs from a crossword maker

A crossword for class is not the same job as a crossword for fun. These are the things that matter on a Tuesday morning:

1. An answer key you can print separately. Grading thirty sheets from memory is not a plan.
2. Your words, your clues. The vocabulary list comes from your unit, so the maker must accept it as written. AI help is a bonus when you are short on time.
3. A clean printout. Name and date lines, a readable grid, clues that fit on one page, no stray branding over the clues.
4. A way to go online without student accounts. A link that opens in a browser beats a sign-up flow for a class of twelve-year-olds.
5. Ads you are comfortable projecting. Free tools pay for themselves somehow. Check what appears on screen before you put it on the board.
6. Something for copying. In a tight room, one layout means one answer sheet for the whole row.

Crossword makers for teachers compared

Prices are what each official page showed on 4 November 2026.

The makers, one by one

1. Grid Genius

Grid Genius gives a teacher three ways in. The free word list builder takes your words and clues and arranges the grid, with no account. The freeform editor lets you place letters by hand. And AI generation builds a complete puzzle from a topic you describe, such as "Year 8 plate tectonics vocabulary", with easy, medium or hard clues in English, German or Italian. Every free account gets 3 AI puzzles to start.

The web maker downloads a PDF worksheet and a separate PDF answer key, plus PNG and JPEG images and .puz, .ipuz and .jpz files for other crossword software. Printing from the app adds Letter or A4 paper, name and date lines, a notes area and a QR code that opens the puzzle online. Because you created the puzzle, the answer key page is available before you have solved it.

For screens, save the puzzle and share its link. It opens in any browser, so students do not need an account to solve. Signed-in solvers can also ask for AI Hints, which rephrase a clue or add a related fact rather than reveal the answer. Pro adds class sets: 2 or 4 versions of the same crossword with the same words and clues in different grid layouts, labelled A to D, each with its own answer key. That is the simplest fix for copying we know of, and our post on printing crossword versions explains how to seat them.

Honest limits: there is no class roster, gradebook or results report, so it is not a replacement for an assignment platform. The free apps have no banner or pop-up ads, only optional videos you can choose to watch for an extra hint. Pro is $7.99 a month or $49.99 a year (checked November 2026).

2. Crossword Labs

Crossword Labs has been around since 2011, and its About page states the case plainly: it "has no ads, no watermarks, and no registration required", and you can "make and print a complete crossword puzzle on Crossword Labs for free". You can print or export to PDF or Microsoft Word, or download an image. When you save, you set a passcode that protects the answer key and lets you edit later. Do not lose it: the site says it cannot be recovered.

The catch for teachers is visibility. Public puzzles are visible to anyone and appear in search engines, so a determined student could find your quiz. Hidden (link only) and private puzzles need the optional membership, which the FAQ prices at $9.95.

Best for: a free, ad-free worksheet in two minutes.

3. The Teacher's Corner

The Teacher's Corner is a worksheet site many teachers already know, and its crossword maker now writes words and clues with AI from a subject you enter. You can print, save as a PDF or image, create an online puzzle, and print the answer key from its Answer KEY button.

The free version is ad-supported and allows 30 lines. With an ad blocker on, the free limit drops to 10 lines. Premium raises it to 50 lines, removes ads and adds 20 save slots you can open on any device; the maker page did not show the price.

Best for: teachers who want AI to fill in the word box and do not mind ads.

4. Discovery Education Puzzlemaker

Puzzlemaker's Criss-Cross is the crossword-style maker most of us met in a staff room. You type a title (49 characters or fewer) and then one word and clue per line, up to 3,000 characters in total, and it builds a puzzle to print. It is free and needs no login. The page carries banner ads, and when we checked it did not mention an answer key or online solving, so plan to keep your own key.

Best for: a quick, familiar handout when nothing else is needed.

5. BrightSprout (formerly My Crossword Maker)

My Crossword Maker now redirects to BrightSprout, and it is the most classroom-specific option here. You paste word and clue pairs in bulk, even straight from a spreadsheet, and it arranges them, sending any word that will not fit to a scratchpad. You can then share a link so students solve and submit online, and the page says "answers are graded automatically". Puzzles can be private or shared with a password, and you can print or download a PDF.

It is paid: a 30-day free trial, then Basic at $5 a month or $4.25 a month billed yearly for unlimited crosswords, Premium at $10 a month for all five BrightSprout tools, or $6 for a single crossword. It promises "No ads, ever."

Best for: teachers who want online solving with grading and are happy to pay.

6. Wordwall

Wordwall is an interactive activity platform rather than a crossword maker, and its Crossword template is one of 22 Pro templates: the free Basic plan covers 3 activities on 12 other templates. Standard and Pro add printing for offline teaching and AI-generated lesson content, and Wordwall lets you set any activity as an assignment and track class progress. Prices on the plan page are shown in your local currency.

Best for: schools already paying for Wordwall that want a crossword alongside quizzes and match-ups.

7. JigsawMake

JigsawMake drafts 5 to 20 answer and clue pairs from a theme with AI, and every download comes in a blank and a solution version, as a PDF or PNG. For teachers the stand-out is tracked links: Premium gives a name-by-name completion list with a CSV export, and free accounts get one tracked link every 30 days. Free share links expire after 30 days, and free PDFs carry a small JigsawMake credit and QR code.

Premium costs $14.99 for 30 days, $24.99 for a 150-day Semester Pass, $49.99 a year or $129.99 for life.

Best for: knowing who finished, without a full learning platform.

8. WordMint

WordMint is a worksheet generator for crosswords, word searches, bingo cards, matching and more, with over 300,000 ready-made puzzles you can adapt. It handles diacritics for Spanish, French and Japanese. The free plan prints a limited number of puzzles and cannot save as PDF or Word; Upgraded costs $5.99 a month or $47.90 a year and makes creating, printing and saving unlimited.

Best for: teachers who want a crossword and a word search on the same list, from one site.

Paper or screen?

Most of the tools above can do both, but they lean one way.

Paper wins for vocabulary review, substitute lessons and early finishers. Students write, you collect, and nobody needs a device. Pick a maker with a separate answer key, name and date lines and a grid big enough to write in. If copying is a problem, print versions. Our printable classroom crosswords guide has eight ways to use them.

Screen wins for homework and remote work, and for checking who actually finished. A share link is enough if you only need students to practise. If you need marks back, BrightSprout's auto-grading, JigsawMake's tracked links or a Wordwall assignment does that job.

A useful middle path: print the worksheet with a QR code on it. Students who finish early, or who are absent, can scan it and solve the same puzzle online.

How to choose

• You want free, printable and done. Grid Genius or Crossword Labs.
• You want the AI to write the clues. Grid Genius for a complete puzzle, or The Teacher's Corner and JigsawMake for an editable AI word list.
• You need grades back. BrightSprout (auto-grading) or JigsawMake Premium (completion list).
• Your school pays for Wordwall. Use its Crossword template on Pro.
• Copying is the problem. Grid Genius Pro class sets of 2 or 4 versions.
• You make word searches and bingo too. WordMint.

Whatever you choose, proofread the clues once on paper. A clue that reads well on screen can still point to two answers, and twenty-eight students will find that out at the same moment.

Frequently asked questions