How Words With Friends Scoring Works

The order it happens in

1. Add up the face value of every tile in the word, including ones already there.
2. Any newly placed tile on a letter multiplier counts double or triple.
3. Multiply the whole word by any word multiplier a new tile covers.
4. Score every perpendicular word your tiles formed, the same way, separately.
5. If you used all seven tiles, add 35 at the end.

Step five is the one people get wrong: the bonus is added after every multiplier and is never itself multiplied.

A worked example

Say RETAIN is on the board and you play SPARE downwards through a new S you place at its end, with that S on a double letter square and the E of SPARE on a double word square.

• RETAINS across: R1 + E1 + T1 + A1 + I1 + N2 + S(1×2) = 9. No new tile covers a word multiplier on that line, so it stays 9.
• SPARE down: S(1×2) + P4 + A1 + R1 + E1 = 9, doubled by the word square under the E = 18.
• Total: 27 from five tiles.

The S scores in both words, and its double letter premium counts in both. That is why a single well-placed tile can be worth more than four badly placed ones.

The three mistakes that cost the most

• Re-using a spent premium. The triple word square you played on last turn scores nothing now.
• Forgetting the cross words. A parallel play forms a short word at every tile. Miss them and you will underestimate the play by half — and if one of them is not a word, the move is illegal.
• Multiplying the 35. It goes on at the end, untouched.

The solver shows this arithmetic for every move it finds: press Explain score on any result and the whole breakdown is there, word by word and square by square.