Cryptogram Tips: How to Crack the Code, Counted

How to solve cryptograms: start with one-letter words and THE, read the apostrophes, count the code letters, spot repeated words and patterns, and say it aloud.

Sunroom Games · Updated October 10, 2026

A cryptogram looks like nonsense at first: a familiar saying with every letter swapped for another. But the code always keeps the shape of the words, and the shape gives a lot away. To find out what gives the code away most often in our puzzles, we counted: we went through all 148 proverbs our Cryptogram uses, and through a thousand of its puzzles at each level. Here's what we found, and how to use it.

How our cryptograms work

Each puzzle is a well-known proverb, like "A stitch in time saves nine." Every letter is replaced by a code letter, the same one every time it appears, so if K stands for E once, it stands for E everywhere. Spaces and punctuation stay as they are, and no letter ever stands for itself. Each letter of the alphabet has its own code letter, so two different code letters never stand for the same letter.

On Easy, about 5 of the saying's letters are filled in to start; on Medium, about 2; and on Hard, none, with longer sayings to make up for it.

What we counted

1. Start with the short words

Short words have only a few possibilities, so they're the quickest to crack.

• One-letter words. In English, a word of one letter is A or I. In our sayings it's always A: proverbs give advice to "you," so "I" never comes up. About 1 saying in 5 has an A on its own.
• Two-letter words. IS is by far the most common in our sayings. It appears 40 times, more often than IN, TO and OF put together. NO, IT, AS and DO turn up often too.
• Three-letter words. THE is in about 1 saying in 4, and it makes up 3 in 10 of all the three-letter words. YOU and AND come next. If a three-letter code word appears twice in one puzzle, try THE first.

2. Look at the apostrophes

An apostrophe is a gift. In our sayings, the letter after it is a T 20 times (DON'T, CAN'T, WASN'T), an S 12 times (THERE'S, IT'S, WHAT'S) and RE just once (YOU'RE). Every one of those T's comes after an N, so when a word ends in 'T, one guess gives you two letters: N and T.

3. Count the code letters

E is the most common letter in English, and it's the same in our sayings: about 1 letter in 8 is an E. In about half of our puzzles, the code letter that appears most often stands for E. In 85 puzzles in 100, it stands for E, T, O or A. Those four letters alone make up about 4 in 10 of all the letters, so getting them right fills in a good part of the saying.

E also likes the ends of words: more than 1 word in 5 in our sayings ends in E, and nearly as many end in S. T is the most common first letter, helped along by THE, THAN, THERE and TIME.

4. Look for patterns and repeats

The code keeps a word's pattern, and patterns narrow things down quickly.

• Repeated words. About 1 saying in 3 uses a word twice, like "No news is good news" or "Easy come, easy go." The same code word appearing twice is easy to spot, and it's often the key to the whole saying.
• Double letters. About 4 sayings in 10 have a double letter. In ours, they're mostly OO, LL, EE, SS and TT (those five make up about 4 in 5 of all the doubles).
• Letters that repeat inside a word. THERE has an E in the third and fifth places; THAT starts and ends with the same letter. A code word with the same pattern is worth trying.

A worked example

Here's one of our proverbs, in code, step by step.

The one-letter word must be A. The six-letter word appears twice, and the letter after its apostrophe is S or T. Look closely at it: its third and fifth code letters are the same. A T would need an N in front of the apostrophe, which would make the word _ _ N _ N'T, and no word looks like that. So it's S.

Now look at the shapes. The five letters before 'S have the same letter in the third and fifth places, and the first word of the saying ends in the same four code letters. Two five-letter words that end the same way and differ only at the start: WHERE and THERE.

From here the proverb almost says itself: "Where there's a WILL, there's a WAY." Only I, L and Y were left to find.

5. Say it aloud

All of our puzzles are proverbs, the kind passed down for generations, and a saying averages just 6 words. Once two or three words are in, read the line aloud with gaps, like "A ___ in time ___ nine." A familiar saying often jumps out, and then you can fill in the rest and check it against the code.

6. Use what can't be true

Two facts rule out wrong guesses:

• No letter stands for itself. If the code shows an R, the answer there isn't R.
• Each letter is used once. If you've already found the code letter for E, no other code letter can be E. On screen, the letter keys fade the letters you've used, and if you type a letter that's already somewhere else, it moves to the new place.

7. Pick the right level, and use a hint when you're stuck

If you're new to cryptograms, start on Easy, where about 5 of the 13 or so letters are already in: often enough to read a word or two straight away. Medium gives you about 2, and Hard gives you none, but its sayings are longer, about 29 letters, so there's more to count.

When you're stuck, Hint fills in the right letter for the code letter you've chosen, or, if you haven't chosen one (or it's right already), for the most common code letter that isn't right yet. One good letter is often all it takes.

Solving on paper

If you do cryptograms from a newspaper or a puzzle book, write the alphabet across the bottom of the page and fill in the code letter under each letter as you find it. Cross letters off as you use them, and write lightly in pencil, so a wrong guess rubs out cleanly. Our printable cryptograms put sayings in large print, usually three to a Letter page, with squares to write in and an answer key, at Easy, Medium and Hard. For other word puzzles, see our crossword tips, word search tips and word scramble tips.

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