Best Daily Crossword Apps (2026): Free and Paid Dailies

The best daily crossword depends on what time you solve and whether you will pay. The New York Times Crossword is still the benchmark daily, and it is a subscription. The Los Angeles Times crossword is the best free newspaper daily, on the web, with streaks for anyone who registers. Penny Dell gives you three free magazine-style dailies a day in an app, and Grid Genius gives you one free daily with a leaderboard, streak shields and no ads on the web.

A daily crossword is a habit before it is a puzzle, so this guide is built around the things a habit needs: when the new puzzle drops, whether it is free tomorrow as well as today, and what counts toward your streak. We checked every app and site below against its own listing or help page on November 4, 2026. Where a publisher's site blocked our check, we left its puzzle out rather than guess.

The short answer

• Best daily overall, if you will subscribe: NYT Games. The Monday-to-Saturday difficulty curve, the Mini, and the strictest streak rules.
• Best free newspaper daily: the LA Times Crossword on latimes.com. Free, gets tougher through the week, streaks and personal bests with a free account.
• Best free daily in an app: Penny Dell. Three new crosswords every day, at Easy, Medium and Hard.
• Best free daily with a leaderboard, and no ads on the web: Grid Genius. One 11x11 puzzle for everyone, new at midnight Eastern.
• Best morning ritual on weekdays: The New Yorker. New puzzles at 6 a.m. Eastern, with the Mini free in its app.
• Best pop-culture daily: Crosswords With Friends. A themed puzzle every day, plus a free mini and midi.
• Best if you already pay for Apple News+: Apple News+ Puzzles. A daily crossword and an always-easy mini.

Daily crosswords compared

Release times are as the publisher states them. "Free" means today's puzzle costs nothing; archives are a separate question, covered in the FAQ.

The dailies, one by one

NYT Crossword (the benchmark, by subscription)

The Times crossword lives in the NYT Games app and on the web. Its schedule is the most solver-friendly of any daily: per the NYT help center, Tuesday to Saturday puzzles appear at 10 p.m. Eastern the night before, and Sunday and Monday puzzles at 6 p.m. Eastern. Difficulty climbs from Monday to Saturday. The Midi, a newer size the listing calls the "just-right size between the Mini and the Crossword," follows the same release times.

The streak rules are strict on purpose. The help center counts a puzzle toward your streak only if you solve it within 48 hours of publication without using Check or Reveal, and using either resets your Crossword streak. The Mini has no streak at all. The stats page shows puzzles solved, solve rate, current streak and longest streak, and the listing promises average solve times.

The cost: the Crossword, the Mini and the Midi all need a subscription. The App Store lists a New York Times Crossword Subscription at $6.99 and $39.99.

LA Times Crossword (the best free newspaper daily)

The Los Angeles Times calls its puzzle "the nation's oldest newspaper crossword," and it is free on latimes.com with no subscription. Its FAQ answers the subscriber question directly: "No. All games are free to play." The clues "get tougher as the week goes on," and a new puzzle is published every day at midnight Eastern (9 p.m. Pacific). A free Mini Crossword runs alongside it.

Register for a free account and the site tracks "streaks, scores, and speed," with achievements for streaks and new personal-best times. Check and Reveal work on a square, a word or the whole grid, the timer can be paused or hidden, and you can print a blank grid, your progress or the solution. Two catches: an ad plays before the game loads, and the archive holds two weeks of puzzles. We found no LA Times crossword app on the App Store, so this is a daily you bookmark.

USA TODAY PLAY Crosswords (newspaper daily in an app)

USA TODAY's crossword app, listed as USA TODAY PLAY Crosswords, promises a new USA TODAY crossword every day, a fast Quick Cross, an archive of past crosswords, hints when you are stuck, and progress tracking with streaks. It is free with ads on both stores, and the App Store lists a $4.99 monthly subscription among its purchases. The listing does not say when the daily appears.

The New Yorker (weekday mornings)

The New Yorker publishes crosswords five times a week, Monday to Friday, and new games appear at 6 a.m. Eastern. Its own FAQ describes an unusual curve: Monday is the most challenging, then Tuesday, and Wednesday is beginner-friendly. Thursday and Friday are Minis. App users get the Mini free; the full archive is for subscribers, whose plan the iOS app lists at $11.99 a month or $119.99 a year after a 7-day trial. A Partner Mode lets two people solve together.

Apple News+ Puzzles (if you already subscribe)

News+ includes a daily crossword that gets harder through the week and an always-easy crossword mini, alongside Quartiles, sudoku and the Emoji Game. Apple's guide describes a scoreboard with current and longest streaks; in the US and Canada, a puzzle counts toward a streak only if you finish it within 24 hours of publication, and revealing an answer takes it out of your stats. News+ is $12.99 a month after a free trial, in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Penny Dell (three free dailies)

Penny Dell brings Penny Press and Dell magazine crosswords to your phone, with three new free puzzles every day at Easy, Medium and Hard. Hints show the current letter or word, and a button shows errors. It is free with ads, and a one-time $19.99 Remove Ads purchase on the App Store clears them. If magazine puzzles are your taste, the same publisher's Daily POP Crossword Puzzles app on iOS adds two more free crosswords a day.

Crosswords With Friends (pop-culture daily)

Zynga's daily runs on themes: Movie Monday, TV Tuesday and on through Sunday Funday. A free daily mini and midi come with it, a leaderboard shows "who solved the daily puzzle the fastest," and a calendar archive holds more. It is ad-supported, with coins for hints and a VIP subscription that removes ads.

Daily Themed Crossword (casual daily)

PlaySimple's app is a gentle themed puzzle. The two stores describe it differently: the App Store promises "A new puzzle every day," while Google Play promises three free themed daily puzzles. It is ad-supported, with coins for hints and a VIP subscription that removes ads and opens part of the archive.

Free web dailies worth bookmarking

Two more free options run in any browser. AARP Games offers a free Daily Crossword, a Mini, and a Daily American Crossword it describes as "not too difficult," with daily, weekly and monthly top-score boards for registered players. Arkadium's Daily Crossword is "totally free to play," archives the week, and lets you control the timer and check letters, clues or the whole grid; Arkadium Plus removes ads for $6.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Both show ads.

The Grid Genius daily challenge

The Grid Genius daily is one 11x11 crossword, the same for everyone, and it changes at midnight US Eastern. It is free, it needs no account, and on the web at play.gridgenius.app it shows no ads at all. The apps on iPhone, iPad and Android carry only optional reward videos you choose to watch.

What makes it a habit rather than a puzzle:

• Today's Fastest Solves. The daily screen ranks signed-in solvers of today's grid by time, so your result means something.
• Leaderboards by period. Points boards run daily, weekly, monthly and all time, on US Eastern days.
• A streak that forgives one bad day. Every 7 consecutive days earns a streak shield, and you can bank two. Miss a day and a shield covers it at your next solve. If a streak does break, you can repair it with a short video in the app, or for free on Pro.
• AI Hints instead of reveals. Stuck on a clue, you can ask for a reworded version of it rather than giving the answer away. Your first reword on a clue costs no points.
• A shareable result. Send your solve to a friend or a group chat when you finish. Our guide to sharing crossword results shows how.

The honest limits. The puzzles are AI-generated around a daily topic, not edited by a named constructor, so they do not have the voice of a Times or LA Times grid, and there is no cryptic. Today's and yesterday's dailies are always open on the free tier, and Pro opens the whole archive, which only goes back to launch. For why a daily habit is worth building, see our piece on the daily crossword habit.

Build a daily lineup

Most daily solvers do not pick one puzzle. They stack two or three that fit different moments of the day. A few combinations that work:

• The free lineup. The LA Times on the web with your morning coffee, Grid Genius's daily at lunch for the leaderboard, and Penny Dell's Easy puzzle before bed. Total cost: nothing.
• The quick lineup. A mini at breakfast (LA Times Mini, the New Yorker Mini in its app, or a Grid Genius Mini on any topic), then one full grid on the weekend. Our guide to the best mini crossword apps compares the short ones.
• The serious lineup. The NYT Crossword the night before, at 10 p.m. Eastern, and the Grid Genius daily after midnight to defend your rank. If numbers keep you coming back, read which crossword apps track your stats best.

How to choose

• You want the classic, and a subscription is fine. NYT Games.
• You want a real newspaper daily for free. LA Times on the web, or USA TODAY PLAY Crosswords in an app.
• You want more than one free puzzle a day in an app. Penny Dell (three) or Crosswords With Friends (a daily, a mini and a midi).
• You want a free daily with a leaderboard and no ads. Grid Genius on the web.
• You solve on weekday mornings. The New Yorker, at 6 a.m. Eastern.
• You want a daily puzzle about a topic you choose. Grid Genius again: after the daily, type any topic and it builds a crossword about it.

Frequently asked questions