Words with Friends · the tiles
Words With Friends Letter Values
A Words with Friends set holds 104 tiles: 102 lettered and 2 blank, worth 220 points in total. 12 letters are priced differently from Scrabble, and knowing which is worth points every game.
Written by Blake Boege Last checked
Every letter, what it is worth
Both columns matter. The value says what a letter scores; the count says how likely you are to draw another, which is what decides whether a tile is worth holding. There is one each of J, K, Q, X and Z, so if you are holding one, nobody else is.
| Letter | Point value | Tiles in the set | Points in the set |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | 9 | 9 |
| B | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| C | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| D | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| E | 1 | 13 | 13 |
| F | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| G | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| H | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| I | 1 | 8 | 8 |
| J | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| K | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| L | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| M | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| N | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| O | 1 | 8 | 8 |
| P | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| Q | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| R | 1 | 6 | 6 |
| S | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| T | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| U | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| V | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| W | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| X | 8 | 1 | 8 |
| Y | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Z | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| blank | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Total | 104 | 220 |
The same thing, grouped by value
- 1 point
- A, E, I, O, R, S, T
- 2 points
- D, L, N, U
- 3 points
- G, H, Y
- 4 points
- B, C, F, M, P, W
- 5 points
- K, V
- 8 points
- X
- 10 points
- J, Q, Z
Where it disagrees with Scrabble
12 letters moved when Words with Friends priced its set, and the direction of each move is playable information. The letters that got dearer are worth building toward; the ones that got cheaper are no longer worth the hoard.
| Letter | Words with Friends | Scrabble |
|---|---|---|
| J | 10 | 8 |
| B | 4 | 3 |
| C | 4 | 3 |
| G | 3 | 2 |
| H | 3 | 4 |
| L | 2 | 1 |
| M | 4 | 3 |
| N | 2 | 1 |
| P | 4 | 3 |
| U | 2 | 1 |
| V | 5 | 4 |
| Y | 3 | 4 |
What the differences mean in play
The pattern in the moves is that Words with Friends pays for consonant clusters. B, C, M and P all climbed to four, G and the H both settled at three, and the J joined Q and Z at ten, so the fiddly consonants that Scrabble treats as furniture are the point engines here. The U is the clearest tell: worth one in Scrabble and famously dead weight there, it doubles to two in this game, and a QUIZ-shaped play pays out accordingly.
The rack work is the same in both games, and the site's rack tools speak both dialects: the word unscrambler turns any seven letters into every playable word, longest first, and the anagram solver finds the plays that spend the whole rack. One honest note: word chips across this site show the standard tile values, not these, and Words with Friends checks plays against its own dictionary, which overlaps heavily with the public-domain list searched here without matching it word for word. When a play is challenged, the app is the referee.