How to Solve Sudoku Faster

How to get faster at Sudoku: the order to look in, when notes save time, and how long each level takes the players of our app, from anonymous totals.

Updated 2026-11-05

How long a Sudoku takes

These are anonymous, aggregate statistics from our app: games won without a hint between October 1, 2026 and November 3, 2026, at least 16,000 games per level, rounded to whole minutes. Half the games took between the two numbers in the last column.

Level	Median (minutes)	Middle half (minutes)
Easy	3	2 – 5
Medium	7	4 – 10
Hard	10	6 – 15
Expert	11	7 – 17
Master	12	8 – 19
Extreme	10	6 – 16

Why Extreme is not the slowest

The players who choose a level differ too. Extreme is probably chosen mostly by experienced solvers, which would explain why its times sit close to Hard's and below Master's. Read the table as what is typical for the people who play each level, not as a fixed difficulty score.

Scan by digit, not by square

Looking at one square and asking which digit fits is slow: most squares have several possibilities. Asking where one digit can go in a box is faster, because the same digit in the rows and columns around it rules squares out at a glance. Go through the digits in order, starting with the one that appears most often.

Follow the new digit

Every digit you place removes options from its row, its column and its box. Look there first before scanning anywhere else: the next move is often right next to the last one.

Notes: late, then complete

On Easy and Medium puzzles, notes usually cost more time than they save, because scanning finds every move. From Hard on you need them, and then half-finished notes are the slowest kind: a missing candidate hides a pattern, and a stale one leads to a mistake. Once you start notes, fill in every square and update them after each placement.

Learn the technique you are missing

Most lost time is time spent stuck. If you often stall at the same level, it is usually one technique you have not met yet, such as the pointing pair on Hard or the Skyscraper on Expert. Our guide to getting unstuck lists the technique that decides each level.

Stuck on a Hard or Expert Sudoku? The Technique You Need Next →

Practice

Every Find the Mistake puzzle on this site has exactly one wrong digit, and you can play each board right on its page.

Play the puzzles →