Spelling Bee vs ContraBee
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Spelling Bee
Master spelling with a daily word puzzle. Find words using a set of seven letters, with one required letter per word. Enjoy a stress-free experience with no lives or penalties, just fun word challenges.
- 8000+ unique 7-letter games
- Daily new letter sets
- Word counts and hints
- No lives or penalties
- Algorithmically generated puzzles
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A whole world of words, in just 7 letters! - be the spelling queen and king - 8000+ unique 7-letter games - Word counts & hints The more words, the more points you get. In order to play well, you need to know how certain words are spelled. That's why one of the most important skills for this game is spelling. Be attentive and don't miss a single word!Each 7-letter game is generated on the fly by algorithm. There are over 8000 unique 7 letter games to play! Spelling Bee is a very popular word game in the US. This game allowed to practice spelling. The rules of our Spelling Bee game are quite simple. Find as many words as possible in a set of 7 letters. Every day you are given new 7 letters - 6 simple and one obligatory. You need to tap on the letters on the screen or keyboard to make 4 letter words out of them. In this case, you can use any number of letters any number of times, but each word must contain a central letter. Some games have only 10 words to find, to win the spelling game... other ones have over 40 words! Use Help to get a word count that will tell you how big the challenge is, see how many you've found, and get hints. That's it! No lives to lose. No penalty for guessing wrong. No stress. Just play!
ContraBee
This app offers a daily word puzzle using the same letter hive as the New York Times Spelling Bee. It challenges players to find words without using the required center letter, encouraging a different approach to word discovery.
- Daily word puzzles
- Uses NYT Spelling Bee letter hive
- Excludes center letter
- Encourages alternative word finding
- Unique puzzle twist
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ContraBee is a complement to each day’s official New York Times Spelling Bee. It uses the same hive as each day’s Spelling Bee, but with a twist: Instead of requiring the center letter, Contra Bee excludes it. You’ll be surprised at how many words you can find if you turn your mind upside down.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Spelling Bee at 100% against ContraBee's 24%. Spelling Bee also leads on rating (4.6 vs 4.1) and ratings volume (24 vs 8). ContraBee's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 4 months). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Spelling Bee sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. ContraBee asks for nothing beyond the download.
Spelling Bee holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 24 and 8 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of Spelling Bee's written reviews are positive against 24% of ContraBee's.
Spelling Bee ships an update every 4 months, ContraBee every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Spelling Bee | ContraBee |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (24 ratings) — better | 4.1 (8 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 23.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 24 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Zhuzhou Yiqi Network Technology Co., Ltd. | Lexi Games LLC |
Customer experience
Spelling Bee
ContraBee
In-app purchases
Spelling Bee
- 220 Coins$0.99
- Remove Ads$1.99
- 660 Coins$2.99
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- 1210 Coins$4.99
- BIG BUNDLE$5.99
- 2640 Coins$9.99
- SUPER BUNDLE$12.99
- 15400 Coins$49.99
- 26400 Coins$79.99
- ULTIMAT BUNDLE$99.99
ContraBee
No in-app purchases
