Use Cases – Riddle Quiz Maker Blog https://www.riddle.com/blog Quiz Maker, Survey Maker, Poll Maker and more Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:30:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.riddle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/favicon.png Use Cases – Riddle Quiz Maker Blog https://www.riddle.com/blog 32 32 Data Protection in Contact Forms: Requirements, Tips, and Templates https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/data-protection-in-contact-forms-requirements-tips-and-templates/ Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:40:38 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=4228 Contact forms are among the most frequently used methods for collecting personal data. That’s why it is particularly important to make contact them GDPR-compliant. Data such as a user’s first name, last name, and email address are generally requested. This data is particularly worthy of protection, especially if it is linked to further information about the person filling it in.

Why is the contact form relevant for data protection?

Contact forms are often the first touchpoint between a company and its audience, so they should be as simple and welcoming as possible. At the same time, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets strict rules for how personal data must be handled – and these requirements can sometimes make forms feel less user-friendly. This article outlines what’s needed to make a contact form fully GDPR-compliant and offers practical ways to meet those standards without sacrificing accessibility or ease of use.

Video: Using contact forms in a GDPR-compliant way

Most contact forms collect personal details such as a name, email address, or phone number. Under the GDPR, businesses are legally required to process this data securely and transparently. Failing to do so doesn’t just risk fines – it can also damage the trust and confidence of the very users you’re trying to connect with.

(Update: Fines are only growing more and more significant for GDPR violations. As of November, 2025, the EU has levied 2645 fines exceeding 6.7 billion euros.)

What are the requirements for GDPR-compliant contact forms?

A detailed list of the eleven most essential requirements for the collection and storage of data following the GDPR can be found in the appendix of this article. The following are the key principles.

Graphic outlining data collection requirements for contact forms in order to remain GDPR-compliant

To be GDPR-compliant, contact forms must:

  • Clearly state the purpose of the data collection.
  • Only request data that is necessary.
  • Obtain informed consent from users.
  • Provide data protection information that is easy to understand and access.
  • Ensure secure transmission of data, e.g., through HTTPS encryption.
  • Store data in a secure country, ideally in the EU or, if outside the EU, explicitly identify the storage location.
  • Use double opt-in (DOI) to get permission to store data and verify its correctness. Do not store data without a successful DOI.

The contact form should only collect necessary data and clearly explain how that data will be used.

For example, if you use a contact form as part of a competition:

  • Users should be informed whether the data will be used solely to determine the winner and contact them.
  • If the data is also going to be used for a newsletter, a checkbox is required for consent to subscribe to the newsletter.
  • In addition, it should be explained what content the newsletter offers and how often it is sent.

The more precisely you explain the purpose of the data collection, the lower the risk associated with your form.

We have also prepared this checklist around creating GDPR-compliant interactive content – including forms but also extending to quizzes, polls, and Riddle’s 30+ other content formats.

How do I create a data protection-compliant contact form?

1. Define the goal of the form

Clearly define what the contact form will be used for, for general inquiries, customer support, or competitions.

2. Define necessary and optional information

Only collect the data that is absolutely necessary. Optional information should be marked as such.

3. Provide data protection information

Make sure users can access the data protection information before submitting the form.

4. Set up encrypted data transmission

Use HTTPS to ensure the data is transmitted securely.

Insert consent checkboxes that must not be pre-ticked. Make sure that consent is documented.

6. Implement double opt-in to confirm the email address

To ensure that the contact form has been completed by the person who entered their email address, you must verify the accuracy of the address. Otherwise, a malicious user could enter the email address of a stranger, who would then be contacted unintentionally.

There are two ways of implementing double opt-in:

a) After the form is sent, an email with a confirmation link is sent. This email must not contain any advertising but only the request to validate the purpose stated in the form by clicking on the confirmation link.

b) A a numerical code, known as a one-time password (OTP), is sent to the email address provided in the form. The code must be entered before the form is finally sent.

Riddle offers both options for validating email addresses.

Use GDPR-compliant contact forms from Riddle

Riddle is a 100% GDPR-compliant form and quiz maker. It offers ready-made solutions for data privacy-conscious contact forms. These ensure that your form meets all legal requirements.

  1. Data storage in Germany: All data is stored on Riddle’s own servers in Germany. It is neither processed on cloud services nor is it outside the EU.
  2. Double opt-in options: Riddle supports standard double opt-in methods, such as sending an email link or an OTP code. Your own mail server can also be used to send the confirmation or the OTP code emails.
  3. Flexibility with checkboxes: You can integrate as many as you like into the form with links to terms and conditions or data protection conditions.
  4. Security measures: You can insert a CAPTCHA into the form as an additional security measure. In addition to Google and Cloudflare CAPTCHAs, you can also use Riddle-made, GDPR-compliant CAPTCHAs, which are also hosted by Riddle. 
  5. No cookies or trackers: Riddle does not set any cookies or load any trackers when a form is embedded on your website.
  6. Flexible integration: Riddle forms can be integrated anywhere in quizzes, surveys, polls, or personality quizzes.
  7. Data storage and forwarding: Form data can be stored securely on the Riddle servers or in a Google Sheet. Alternatively, it can be sent to popular email marketing tools such as Brevo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or AWeber.
  8. Easy data deletion: If you store data on the Riddle servers, you can quickly find all form entries for an email address when a user requests deletion and securely delete them with just a few clicks.

Check out this GDPR-compliant contact form template (powered by Riddle):

Try Riddle for free and create your own form – all features unlocked, no credit card required.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a GDPR notice in the contact form?

Yes, it is necessary to provide information about the processing of personal data in the context of a contact form. The GDPR stipulates that data subjects must be informed about the collection and processing of their data. This can be done by providing a link to the privacy policy or adding a short notice directly to the form. It is crucial that this information is easily accessible and easy to understand.

Is double opt-in necessary for contact forms?

Double opt-in (DOI) is generally not required for simple contact forms for direct communication. This procedure is mainly used in email marketing to ensure that consent to receive newsletters or advertising emails comes from the owner of the email address. For contact forms, simple consent is usually sufficient. However, to increase the quality of any collected addresses, we do recommend using DOI. This ensures that the form was sent by the person filling it out and that they want to be contacted.

How long can I store the data collected in the contact form?

Personal data should only be stored for as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected. After the purpose has been fulfilled, such as after an inquiry has been answered, the data must be deleted, provided there are no legal obligations to retain it. Setting clear deletion deadlines and communicating these transparently in the privacy policy is advisable.

Can I use the data from the contact form for marketing purposes?

No, using data from a contact form for marketing purposes is not permitted without the express consent of the data subject. The GDPR requires specific and informed consent to process personal data for marketing purposes. For example, separate consent can be obtained by adding a checkbox to the form that must not be pre-ticked. 

Why does a contact form have to be GDPR-compliant?

Processing personal data without complying with the GDPR is not allowed and can result in significant fines.

What should be included in the privacy notice?

The privacy notice should clearly explain the purpose of the data collection, the underlying legal basis, and the users’ rights.

Appendix: The 11 most important GDPR rules for data collection and storage

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides clear data collection and storage guidelines that apply throughout the European Economic Area (EEA). Here are the key principles, along with the relevant GDPR articles:

1. Lawfulness, fairness and transparency Art. 5(1)(a) GDPR

Explanation: Personal data may only be processed lawfully and transparently. The data subject must be informed about what data is collected and why.

Example: A privacy policy must be easily accessible and easy to understand.

2. Purpose limitation Art. 5(1)(b) GDPR

Explanation: Data may only be collected for predetermined, clear, and legitimate purposes. Further processing for other purposes is only possible to a limited extent.

Example: If a contact form is used for customer inquiries, the data may not be used for marketing purposes without consent.

3. Data minimization Art. 5(1)(c) GDPR

Explanation: Only data necessary for the intended purpose may be collected.

Example: Questions such as “date of birth” or “address” in a general contact form should only be asked if they are needed.

4. accuracy Art. 5(1)(d) GDPR

Explanation: Data must be accurate and up to date. Incorrect or outdated data must be rectified or erased.

Example: A function for updating or correcting user information should be provided.

5. Storage limitation Art. 5(1)(e) GDPR

Explanation: Data may only be stored for as long as is necessary for the purpose. After this period, they must be deleted or anonymized.

Example: Customer inquiries should be deleted as soon as they have been processed unless legal retention obligations apply.

6. Integrity and confidentiality Art. 5(1)(f) GDPR

Explanation: Data must be protected against unauthorized access, loss, or destruction by appropriate technical and organizational measures.

Example: SSL/TLS encryption should be implemented for data transfers and strict access rights.

7. Accountability Art. 5(2) GDPR

Explanation: The controller must always be able to demonstrate that the processing of personal data complies with the GDPR rules.

Example: Companies should implement a data protection concept and internal logging mechanisms.

Processing is only lawful if it is based on one of the following legal bases:

  • Consent of the data subject (Art. 6 (1)(a) GDPR)
  • Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR)
  • Compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR)
  • Protection of vital interests (Art. 6 (1)(d) GDPR)
  • Performance of a task carried out in the public interest (Art. 6 (1)(e) GDPR)
  • Protection of legitimate interests, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject (Art. 6 (1)(f) GDPR)

9. Rights of the data subject Art. 12–22 GDPR

  • Right of access (Art. 15 GDPR): Data subjects can request information about the personal data stored about them.
  • Right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR): Incorrect data must be rectified.
  • Right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR): Data subjects can request that their data be erased (right to be forgotten).
  • Right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR): Data subjects can request their data in a machine-readable format.
  • Right to object (Art. 21 GDPR): Data subjects can object to their data being processed.

10. Data protection through technology design and data protection-friendly default settings Art. 25 GDPR

Explanation: Systems and processes must be designed to be data protection-friendly from the outset.

Example: Default settings should be configured to ensure that only necessary data is processed (privacy by design and default).

11. Information to be provided Art. 13 and 14 GDPR

Explanation: Data subjects must be provided with comprehensive information when data is collected.

Example: This is usually done using visible data protection notices or pop-ups.

You can find the full GDPR on the official EU Website.

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Maximize Your Search Engine Ranking by Increasing the Time Spent on Your Site https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/maximize-your-search-engine-ranking-by-increasing-the-time-spent-on-your-site/ Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:28:30 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=4026 Search engines like Google or Bing will always provide users with links to the most relevant and valuable content first. The search engine determines the informational value of the content by measuring whether the user remains on the clicked link or returns directly to the search results. A user’s decision to stay on a site indicates that the result was useful.

The measurement to figure out if the content was useful is called time on site (or sometimes time on page). Suppose the user returns to the search results after a few seconds? In that case, the search engine will conclude that the result did not align with the user’s initial search query and may display that page with reduced frequency or at a lower position in the search results.

Engaging your audience and encouraging them to spend more time on your website is essential for improving your SEO rankings. The longer visitors stay on your site, the more opportunities they have to explore your content, interact with your brand, and convert into valuable leads or customers.

We will explore proven strategies and techniques to captivate your audience and make your website a must-visit destination. Slight spoiler alert: You’re reading this post on Riddle’s blog so we’ll be sharing how our quiz maker makes it easy to create ‘sticky’ / high time on site content like quizzes and personality tests.

So, whether you are an e-commerce site, a news outlet, or a service provider, increasing time on site is vital to your success. Get ready to uncover the secrets that will transform your website and maximize your SEO potential. Let’s dive in and take your website engagement to new heights!

Take this quiz to test your basic SEO knowledge

What is time on site?

Time on site, also referred to as average session duration or average time on page, is a metric that gauges the duration of a user’s engagement with a website or a specific page within that website. This is calculated by dividing the total time spent on the website or page by the number of sessions or page views.

This metric offers valuable insights into the level of engagement and interest demonstrated by visitors to your content and website. A high time on site indicates that users are engaging with your content, navigating your website easily, and spending significant time exploring your offerings. On the flip side, a low time on site may indicate that users quickly leave your website, need help finding the information they are seeking, or are uninterested in the content you are presenting.

Time on site can vary depending on the type of website and the user’s intent. For instance, a news or media website may have a higher average time on site due to users engaging with long-form articles and videos. In contrast, an e-commerce site may have a lower average time on site as users quickly navigate to find and purchase the products they need.

Understanding the typical time on site for your industry and comparing your website’s performance to industry benchmarks can help you identify areas for improvement and set realistic goals for increasing engagement.

In 2025, dwell time is still highly important for organic search – one study showed that getting a 20% lift in time on site resulted in a 5% across the board ranking boost. Doubling dwell time more than tripled that – with an 18% lift.

The importance of increasing time on site

quizzes improve time on site which has a positive effect on SEO and on advertising revenue

In the digital age, where attention spans are dwindling and competition for user engagement is fierce, visitors’ time on your website has become a critical metric for success. Increasing time on site is more than just retaining users on your platform for an extended period.

It is a core strategy for enhancing engagement, optimizing search engine results, and ultimately driving increased conversions and revenue for your business. The longer a user remains on your website, the greater the opportunity to engage them, showcase your products or services, and nurture them through the sales funnel.

Users spending more time on your site are more likely to explore multiple pages, engage with your content, and develop a stronger connection with your brand. This increased engagement can result in higher conversion rates, as users who are invested in your content are more likely to take desired actions, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form.

Moreover, time on site is a significant factor in search engine algorithms. Google and other major search engines utilize dwell time, defined as the amount of time a user spends on a page after clicking on a search result, as a signal of the relevance and quality of your content. The more time users spend on your pages, the more search engines will recognize your website as a valuable and authoritative resource, which can lead to higher search engine rankings and increased organic traffic. By optimizing for increased time on site, you can enhance the user experience and improve your overall SEO performance, driving more qualified leads and potential customers to your business.

What strategies can be employed to increase time on site?

The most effective way to increase time on site is to provide users with the exact content they are searching for. If you can achieve this consistently, you will eventually achieve a top-three position in Google. However, providing the optimal content to every user immediately is challenging, particularly given the limited attention span of the typical internet user. The two most effective methods for retaining readers on your site are:

  1. Displaying a brief video.
  2. Inviting engagement through a challenge, such as a quiz, poll, or personality test. 

Video content is highly effective. Readers already spend considerable time scrolling through social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram and are used to consuming short videos. However, creating a video requires high expertise and time investment. An unprofessional video will have a detrimental impact on your time on site.

Quizzes are an excellent way to engage readers. They have been used to entertain readers for decades, long before the advent of the internet. If you are old enough to remember paper magazines, you may recall the many quizzes or personality tests they had at the end of each issue. Readers would calculate their results by counting how often they selected answers a), b), or c). Creating a quiz in minutes is now also possible using Riddle.com’s A.I. tools.

Create a quiz that fits the topic of your page content and make it 5 to 8 questions long. The questions should not be too complicated or frustrate users but still challenging enough to keep them reading and answering.

Quizzes increase time on site by 3 minutes

We have conducted studies and interviewed our customers about how a quiz affects the time spent on a web page. The BBC tells us that adding a quiz to an article increases the time on site to 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The average time a reader spends on any web page across the internet is 54 seconds, according to a study cited by Hubspot.

Based on our data the time on site increase by adding a quiz is from 0:54 to 3:56 minutes – a 421% increase. You can find our sources for these numbers in our annual quiz marketing report.

If you cannot find the time or suitable topics for a quiz, you can also add a quick poll to every page. While polls do not increase time on site as much as quizzes or personality tests, they will get people to interact and also take a few seconds to study how other people have voted in the poll.

You can also find inspiration in our guide ‘143 proven quiz titles your audience will love’ – full of excellent tips and best practices around crafting compelling titles that work.

Monitoring and improving time on site

To ensure your website is performing optimally, it is crucial to have a comprehensive system in place to measure and track time on site. It is advisable to employ web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to collect and analyze data about user engagement and behavior on your website.

Monitor key performance indicators related to time on site, including average session duration, pages per session, and bounce rate. These metrics should be analyzed across different pages, content types, and user segments to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement.

For instance, you may discover that specific blog posts or product pages have considerably longer average time on site than others, which can provide valuable insights into the content and features that resonate most with your audience.

Furthermore, establish benchmarks and objectives for enhancing time on site and consistently assess your progress. This will assist you in evaluating the efficacy of your engagement-boosting strategies and making well-informed decisions about future website optimizations.

But remember… improving time on site is a continuous project.

Continuously refine your approach based on the data and insights you gather. By being prepared to test and iterate, you can identify the most effective ways to increase time on site and drive superior overall website performance.

Further reading

Definition of time on site and why it is essential to measure and improve it by AgencyAnalytics

Industry benchmarks for average time on page by MetricHQ

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why is time on site important for SEO performance?

Time on site helps search engines determine if your content meets user expectations. If visitors leave quickly, it signals low relevance; if they stay, it shows satisfaction and usefulness. Longer sessions can lead to better search visibility and user retention. Riddle’s interactive tools encourage visitors to spend more time exploring your site, improving both engagement and SEO results.

How can I increase time on site effectively?

You can increase time on site by publishing content that is informative, easy to read, and visually appealing. Use videos, images, and internal links to keep users exploring your site. Interactive elements are especially effective—Riddle allows you to embed quizzes, polls, and personality tests that turn passive visitors into active participants and extend their stay.

Does time on site affect Google rankings directly?

Google does not officially confirm time on site as a ranking factor, but it indirectly influences SEO by signaling engagement and reducing bounce rates. Pages that keep users longer tend to rank higher because they satisfy search intent more effectively. Riddle’s interactive experiences can help achieve this by increasing visitor engagement and dwell time.

What type of content increases time on site the most?

Interactive and engaging content keeps visitors on your site longer. Quizzes, polls, infographics, and long-form guides are among the most effective formats. When visitors actively participate, they spend more time and explore further. Riddle makes it simple to create these types of interactive experiences, helping you significantly boost your website’s average time on site.

What is considered a good average time on site?

Ideal time on site varies by industry. For example, news and blog websites may average two to four minutes, while e-commerce sites often see shorter sessions due to faster purchasing behavior. The key is to measure and improve your own baseline. Many Riddle users report increasing their average time on site by over 400 percent after adding interactive quizzes or polls.

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Riddle Quizmaker is Fully CCPA-compliant https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/data-collection/riddle-quizmaker-is-fully-ccpa-compliant/ Wed, 12 Nov 2025 11:40:35 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=1145 CCPA compliance

Disclaimer: We do not provide legal advice. We recommend that you seek legal advice from a lawyer about how Riddle’s quiz maker complies with the CCPA.  

Riddle is fully CCPA compliant 

California introduced its California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which took effect on January 1, 2020. As California has the fifth-largest economy in the world, this law has a huge impact on many businesses.  The CCPA will affect you if you are a for-profit entity doing business in California and meet any of these criteria:  

  • Annual revenue over $25 million  
  • Buy/ receive/sell/share personal identifiable information (PII) of over 50,000 consumers, devices, or households for commercial purposes 
  • Generate over 50% of annual revenue from selling consumer personal information  

Riddle is fully CCPA compliant 

Riddle is fully GDPR-compliant and therefore also fully CCPA compliant. The GDPR is the European General Data Protection Regulation – and is considered among the strictest privacy laws in the world.

There are two options for using Riddle: 

  1. Riddle without a lead form: 
    • If you create a Riddle without a lead form, we do not collect any personal information. We only collect overall (anonymous) statistics such as:  
      • 15k people took the quiz 7k answered question one with “Yes” 
      • We do not track individual quiz results, and we are not able to break out the data for a specific user. Plus, we do not drop any cookies or use trackers to track your quiz takers. 
      • For example, if you were to use our Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) format, your audience could give their feedback about your brand or site anonymously – without any PII being passed by Riddle.
Diagram showing how Riddle is CCPA compliant by not collecting personal information (PII) in quizzes, polls, and other content that do not have a lead form.
  1. Riddle with a lead generation form:   
    • Quizzes are powerful lead generation tools, and adding a lead generation form will provide opt-in rates of close to 30%.  If you include a lead form in a Riddle, we will pair each of your leads’ PII with their responses.  
    • We designed Riddle so that this PII is passed directly to your email marketing tool – unless you choose to store the data on the Riddle servers.
    • We only store the information when you select the “save to Riddle” option. If you select this option, the data will be stored encrypted on our own servers in our German banking-grade datacenter, and only you will have access to it. 
Diagram showing how Riddle lets you collect personal information (PII) in quizzes, polls, and other content in a CCPA compliant way.

Deleting a user’s personal information upon request.

As part of being CCPA compliant, you’re required to delete a PII when you’re asked to.  

With Riddle, you can do all of that without getting your developers involved.  Simply search for the data to be deleted in our lead management tools and securely erase the data. Alternatively, you can erase all data from all users stored with a particular Riddle.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about being CCPA compliant

Who needs to be CCPA compliant?

You need to be CCPA compliant if your business meets any of the following criteria:
– Generates over $25 million in annual revenue.
– Handles personal data from more than 50,000 consumers, devices, or households.
– Earns over 50% of revenue from selling personal information.

Why is CCPA compliance so important for businesses using a quiz maker?

If your business operates in or serves California residents, you must ensure that your tools — including quiz and lead-generation platforms — are CCPA compliant. Riddle helps you stay compliant automatically, reducing legal risk and building user trust.

How does Riddle’s GDPR compliance make it CCPA compliant?

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is one of the strictest data protection frameworks in the world. Because Riddle is fully GDPR compliant, it already meets — and in some areas exceeds — the standards required to be CCPA compliant.

How does Riddle handle data when no lead form is used?

If you create a quiz or survey without a lead form, Riddle does not collect any personal information. Only anonymous statistics (like total quiz completions or answer distributions) are stored. This setup is naturally CCPA compliant since no personal identifiable information (PII) is involved.

What happens when I add a lead generation form in Riddle?

When using a lead generation form, Riddle collects PII only to deliver it directly to your connected email marketing tool. The data is not stored by Riddle unless you choose the “save to Riddle” option — which keeps it encrypted in secure, German banking-grade datacenters.

How does Riddle ensure CCPA-compliant data storage?

Any personal data you choose to store on Riddle’s servers is encrypted and accessible only to you. The information resides in secure data centers in Germany and Luxembourg, ensuring both GDPR and CCPA compliance.

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Create an Interactive Advent Calendar for Your Website https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/create-an-interactive-advent-calendar-for-your-website/ Tue, 11 Nov 2025 15:07:46 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=4146 No matter when you read this post, you’re probably already planning for the next Christmas season! It is the best season to generate new leads and sales, as people are often at home and browsing the web for Christmas gifts. Give them something to return to your website daily by running an interactive advent calendar with a new, fun game every day from December 1st until Christmas Eve. 

Creating an advent calendar with Riddle’s quiz maker is easy and requires no coding or technical skills. All it takes is a creative mind to develop 24 ideas for mini-games and quizzes.

You can build these in minutes with Riddle’s AI tools – or using our formats such as ‘Tap and find’ and ‘Spot the difference’ that include images with hotspots, to challenge your audience to spot differences between two images or find hidden objects.

Example advent calendar – using Riddle’s quiz maker and leaderboard

You can see an example of an advent calendar in action – we used Riddle’s Tap and Find block with image with 24 numbers.

Each quiz is a single question, along with a contest entry form (plus entry to our leaderboard).

  • Make and copy a one question quiz 24 times.
  • Simply change the hot spot location in the Tap and Find block for different days, plus add a new question.
  • The correct day’s quiz will display automatically using our embed placeholder.

Why create an advent calendar?

An advent calendar – especially incorporating quizzes or mini-games like Sudoku or crosswords – on your website will help you with these goals:

  • Get repeat visitors during the most significant shopping time of the year.
  • Attract more attention: In 2025, capturing (and keeping!) your audience’s attention is more crucial than ever. According to marketers, interactive content is 81% more effective than traditional articles at engaging readers from the start.
  • Increase dwell time on your website: Quizzes are highly engaging (421% more time on site than passive content) and will keep your visitors on your site longer.
  • Get more SEO traffic – all that extra time on site means more visitors; Google ranks sites higher that have more dwell time. (For a deep dive, check out our post on “time on site”.)
  • Sell products from the quiz result pages with call-to-action buttons.
  • Collect email addresses from participants for your newsletter – especially if you’re running a 24 day contest (‘The highest total points wins!’)

Ideas for advent calendar content

Here are some ideas for your advent calendar content and suggestions for creating them.

Quizzes

These quizzes can all be generated using the Riddle AI quiz builder, and they will only take a few minutes to create.

  • Holiday traditions around the world: Ask questions about unique Christmas traditions from different countries.
  • Movies: A quiz about famous Christmas movies like Home Aone, Elf, or The Grinch
  • Music: A quiz about famous Christmas songs: Guess the lyrics or identify a singer. You can build this quiz using our free text answer option, play a sound bit, or show a YouTube clip with a song and ask the quiz taker to enter the singer’s name.
  • Festive food facts quiz: Ask questions about popular holiday dishes and ingredients,
    like “What is a traditional pudding in the UK?”.
  • Christmas carols quiz: Show the opening line of a popular carol and use the free text answer quiz block type to have the quiz taker type the carol’s name.
  • Famous people’s winter birthday quiz: Show pictures of celebrities and ask which of them was born in December.

Image-based games

Use our Spot the Difference, Guess It, or Tap and Find block types to create image-based quizzes. You can easily create these images using AI tools like Midjourney or ChatGPT

  • Hidden star quiz: Create an image of various Christmas objects and hide one or many stars the quiz taker needs to find.
  • Spot the difference: Create a Christmas scene loaded with ornaments and make subtle changes to one image using a photo editing tool like Adobe Express or Canva. Ask the quiz taker to find the differences.
  • Guess it: Which Christmas character is this? Quiz takers have 5 chances to guess the blurred out image. Each wrong guess means fewer points but the image unblurs slightly to help.

As these Riddles are fast and easy to create, mix them with the Christmas quizzes to create 24 different Riddles for your advent calendar.

Second example

Create a placeholder for your advent calendar Riddles

Using the embed placeholder feature in Riddle, you can schedule your advent calendar all in advance.

  1. Quickly make 24 quizzes with our intuitive AI quiz maker.
  2. Create the embed placeholder.
  3. Embed on your site (as easy as placing a YouTube video)
  4. Schedule one Riddle daily for the 24 days leading up to Christmas Eve.
  5. That’s it! Once set up, your calendar will run automatically for 24 days.

If you are using Riddle’s quiz lead generation tools, we recommend you download your leads or connect Riddle to your CRM, such as Brevo, Active Campaign, MailChimp, etc., to add new leads to your email marketing campaigns.

The Riddle embed placeholder will handle all the scheduling and swap out the Riddles on the set date for you automatically.

Showing a different Riddle every day using the embed placeholder with time based delivery

Advanced techniques 

Leaderboards

To make the advent calendar more engaging, consider adding a quiz leaderboard. You can connect all 24 Riddles to the same leaderboard and give a grand prize at Christmas to the top three spots on the leaderboard. 

Email automation

Set up an email automation in Riddle to send an email to each participant after the quiz is completed. Use this to promote your products. If you are using the leaderboard, also add a link to the leaderboard asking the user to check their place and reminding them to come back the next day to get a shot at a top leaderboard position.

CTA buttons

Add a call-to-action button to your quiz result pages – promoting Christmas specials, discount codes, or related content 

Use tags

Add the tag “xmas” to each Riddle in your Your Riddles list to make them easy to find. You can also use tags to add Riddles based on the tag to the embed placeholder.

Further reading

12 Days of Christmas – Advent Calendars, A Marketing Tool. This article gives background and examples of offline- and online advent calendars.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why should publishers use an advent calendar for marketing?

Advent calendars are a proven way for publishers to boost traffic and user retention during the holiday season. By releasing one piece of interactive content each day, they give audiences a reason to come back regularly. This repeated engagement helps improve key SEO signals such as dwell time and returning visitor rates, while also providing ongoing opportunities to collect email leads and showcase sponsored content or CTAs.

How can Riddle’s quiz maker be used to build an advent calendar?

Riddle’s quiz creator allows users to build a fully functional digital advent calendar by creating 24 interactive pieces of content and scheduling them to display one per day. Using Riddle’s embed placeholder, publishers can automatically switch out content daily without needing to manually update the site. Each piece can include a quiz, personality test, poll, or image-based game, providing a seamless and engaging countdown experience.

What types of content work well in an advent calendar?

Content that performs well in advent calendars includes holiday-themed quizzes, festive image-based challenges, and mini-games like Sudoku or crosswords. These formats offer bite-sized, enjoyable interactions that are perfect for daily consumption and can be easily tailored to match a brand’s tone and seasonal messaging. Adding a leaderboard to track users’ points across all 24 days is highly recommended.

How does an advent calendar help with SEO?

An advent calendar improves SEO by encouraging daily visits and longer session durations, both of which are important ranking factors for search engines. Since new content is published each day, it keeps the website fresh and regularly indexed by search bots. The interactive nature of quizzes and games also keeps users more engaged compared to traditional static blog posts.

What are some technical and design tips for executing an advent calendar?

Setting up a successful advent calendar involves preparing 24 pieces of content in advance and using a scheduling feature like Riddle’s embed placeholder to automate their appearance. It’s important to ensure the design is festive and mobile-friendly, with intuitive navigation and clear calls to action.

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143 proven quiz titles your audience will love https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/engagement/143-proven-quiz-titles-your-audience-will-love/ Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:16:33 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=371 Want to use online quizzes to drive engagement, collect leads, and supercharge your marketing funnel? Nothing – nothing – is more important than the right quiz title. Think of your quiz title like the cover of a book. You might have the most insightful questions and powerful results ever created, but that means nothing if people don’t click to engage.

Think of your quiz title like a cover of a book - it should be irresistible to grab attention.

We recently updated this popular post to reflect the latest data and research – especially around the rise of A.I. as well as the ongoing shift away from desktop to mobile (64.17% of all web visits – as of June 2025).

Before you create a quiz with your favorite quiz maker, find out the secrets behind the quiz titles that intrigue and inspire your audience to engage and complete. Then, put these findings into practice with our list of 143 quiz titles by topic, ranging from tech to entertainment and mental health.

Looking for inspiration? Explore our case study library to discover how experienced Riddle creators use quizzes to drive impressive results – from Tate Modern, whose quizzes generate 50% of their traffic, to Immediate Media, which saw a 20% increase in time on site.

Why quiz titles matter for engagement & SEO

With 1.5 billion websites (and counting), plus streaming videos, playing games, and sharing the latest cat video on Tik Tok, your potential audience has a lot of choices – too many choices most likely. Show them boring or dull content, and click and they’re gone.

Online quizzes (with good quiz titles) help cut through all of this noise – turning passive, idle browsers into clicking and engaged participants. Users who click stay on site longer – much longer (up to 52.6% longer according to Mediafly).

3 reasons good quiz titles boost traffic and monetization

All of that quiz-powered engagement is a powerful secret sauce to level up your content, helping you with:

More time on site: The typical quiz averages 8-12 questions – and that translates into spending longer clicking and interacting on your site. We crunched the numbers and found that visitors to pages with quizzes spend 3 minutes 56 seconds there. That’s more than a 4X improvement compared to the 54 seconds visitors spend on pages without interactive content.

Better SEO: All that extra time on site does wonders for your search rankings. Google rewards sites that have low bounce rates and high dwell time with better search rankings – those are clear signals that visitors are finding the content valuable. And better SEO means more site visitors and customers.

More revenue: All of that time on site also translates into improved monetization – you can collect zero-party data with quiz lead generation, as well as more ads on your page. A top quiz maker like Riddle will let you programmatically serve your own ads into your quiz (you can use Riddle’s flexible ad block) as well as refresh the ads on your site every X questions). This pays off – publishers consistently tell us they get 20% more revenue from pages with quizzes on them.

The 3 essentials every high-converting quiz title needs

Now that you’re ready to create your online quiz, we recommend you follow these three best practices:

  1. Short, punchy titles
  2. Get personal and speak to the user
  3. Add power words for urgency (and drive clicks)
top 3 best practices for good online quiz titles

When crafting high-converting quiz titles, it pays to be brief – especially on mobile devices. Your goal should be to have titles of no more than 4–7 words for maximum impact on smaller screens. That’s shorter than our previous advice of 6-10 words – it pays to focus on super-tight phrasing that fits comfortably on a smartphone screen without getting cut off.

Top-performing titles lean into personality and urgency by speaking directly to the user. See how “How Future-Proof Is Your Skillset?” is much more compelling than “Future-ready or Stuck in the Past: Take our Career Test!”?

Don’t be afraid of a well-placed emoji for eye-catching playfulness, and be sure to sprinkle in Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) power words such as ‘secret’, ‘actually’, ‘really’, and more. Remember, it’s not just about what the quiz is – it’s about how the title feels.

Create your own quiz titles – with AI

Artificial intelligence makes crafting the perfect quiz title easier than ever. Whether it’s Copilot, Gemini, or ChatGPT, you can quickly have AI whip up a long list of possible quiz titles.

But just like anything around artificial intelligence, you need to know what to ask – and how to analyze what is created – in order to pick the best quiz title for your needs.

Sample prompt for creating a quiz title with AI:

To save you a step, consider using our sample prompt when asking AI for quiz titles:

I’m a content marketer for <your brand or site> creating on online quiz around <your topic> in order to <your marketing goals – drive engagement, collect leads, etc.>. I need 10 variants of a quiz title – each should have short, punchy titles of 4-7 words, refer to the user directly (e.g. ‘you’), and also use EMV (emotional marketing value) words to create a sense of urgency.

For example, we modified this prompt for use in a careers site:

I’m a content marketer for a hypothetical site called Gen Z Unleashed creating on online quiz around finding work in order to drive engagement. I need five variants of a quiz title – each should have short, punchy titles of 4-7 words, refer to the user directly (e.g. ‘you’), and also use EMV (emotional marketing value) words to create a sense of urgency.

And this is what ChatGPT came back with – impressive, right?

  • Are You Wasting Your Talents?
  • What’s Blocking Your Dream Job?
  • Is Your Career Path Off-Track?
  • How Hireable Are You Really?
  • Are You Built for Freelance Freedom?

As a good rule of thumb with AI, we recommend asking it for 2X more title variants than you initially expect – the quality of aritificial intelligence-created content is… uneven. Half of the entries will be good, the others mediocre – so a larger pool of possibilities will help you hone in on a winner.

Create quiz titles with our AI tool

To save you a click, you can also just try our AI quiz title creator here:

Riddle’s quiz maker integrates AI into creating a quiz, poll, or other interactive content. You simply enter a topic – or ask AI to craft a quiz based on a URL.

For example, your editorial team can add interactive content to their workflow. Any time they write an article, they just paste that URL and voila! Your site has another high impact quiz, poll, or survey.

If you like the quiz title, copy it and create a free trial account on Riddle.com. Then make a new quiz using Riddle’s A.I. quiz maker with this title.

Wrapping things up

Let’s face it – no one clicks a boring headline. You only have a split second to grab your audience’s attention – if they don’t click, your quiz does not stand a chance. The good news? You now have the tools, tips, and examples to write quiz titles that get noticed.

Remember: Aim to create quiz titles that feel punchy and personal. They’ll be the ones worth clicking. That first impression counts so make it a good one.


143 quiz titles (and examples) we love by topic and industry

AI & tech

  1. Which AI Tool Fits Your Workflow?
  2. What’s Your Digital Productivity Style?
  3. Are You More Human or Bot?
  4. What’s Your Future-of-Work Persona?
  5. Could You Outsmart an AI Tool?
  6. Are You Fully Automated or Not?
  7. What’s Your Prompt Engineering Style?
  8. Which AI Assistant Matches You?

Mental health

  1. Are You Living Mindfully Enough?
  2. What’s Your Mental Resilience Score?
  3. How Emotionally Aware Are You?
  4. What Type of Inner Voice?
  5. Do You Set Good Boundaries?
  6. What’s Your Daily Wellness Pattern?
  7. What’s Your Emotional Regulation Style?
  8. Are You Experiencing Burnout Signs?

Sustainability

  1. What’s Your Eco‐Footprint Style?
  2. Could You Survive Zero Waste Living?
  3. Are You a Conscious Consumer?
  4. How Green Is Your Routine?
  5. What’s Your Climate Action Superpower?
  6. What’s Your Plastic-Free Living Potential?
  7. What’s Your Upcycling Personality Type?
  8. What’s Your Eco-Friendly Energy Score?

Personality tests

  1. What Color Is Your Personality?
  2. What Dog Breed Matches You?
  3. Introvert or Extrovert – Find Out
  4. What’s Your Social Battery Score?
  5. What’s Your Alter Ego Persona?
  6. Which Element Best Reflects You?
  7. What’s Your Chaos vs. Order Ratio?
  8. What’s Your Vibe Right Now?

Career

  1. What’s Your Dream Career Path?
  2. Are You Really in Right Job?
  3. Do You Have Leadership Potential?
  4. What’s Your Burnout Risk Level?
  5. What Industry Truly Suits You?
  6. What Career Matches Your Personality?
  7. Are You Culture Fit or Rebel?
  8. What’s Your Workplace Superpower?

Product recommendation

  1. What Hair Oil Matches Your Vibe?
  2. Mac or PC – Which Suits You?
  3. What’s Your Signature Drink Tonight?
  4. Which Smartwatch Fits Your Lifestyle?
  5. What Coffee Maker Should You Get?
  6. What’s Your Art Collector Type?
  7. Which Smartphone Matches Your Personality?
  8. What’s Your Tech Gadget Type?

Coaching & mentoring

  1. What’s Your True Life Purpose?
  2. Are You Mover, Connector, Creator?
  3. What Kind of Healer Are You?
  4. What’s Holding You Back Most?
  5. What’s Your Emotional Intelligence Type?
  6. Is Your Job Your Calling?
  7. What’s Your Growth Mindset Score?
  8. What’s Your Coaching Style Archetype?

Marketing & business

  1. Are You a Marketing Mastermind?
  2. What’s Your Marketing Superpower Type?
  3. Should You Start a Business?
  4. What’s Your Ideal Brand Voice?
  5. How GDPR-Compliant Is Your Business?
  6. What Kind of Negotiator Are You?
  7. Are You Brand or Performance Marketer?
  8. What’s Your Funnel Building Style?

Travel

  1. What’s Your Travel Personality Type?
  2. Which U.S. City Suits You?
  3. Could You Backpack the World?
  4. What’s Your Dream Travel Season?
  5. Are You Tourist or Travel Hacker?
  6. Which Celebrity Is Your Travel Buddy?
  7. Can You Travel Light Successfully?
  8. What’s Your Ideal Vacation Vibe?

Education

  1. Should You Even Go to College?
  2. What Major Actually Fits You?
  3. What’s Your Ideal Learning Style?
  4. Could You Ace a Teaching Exam?
  5. What STEM Career Matches You Best?
  6. What’s Your Study Method Style?
  7. What’s Your Exam Strategy Score?
  8. What Master’s Program Is Right?

Entertainment

  1. Which Star Wars Character Are You?
  2. What Hogwarts House Suits You?
  3. Can You Name These Unmasked Stars?
  4. Are You Indie, Pop, or Rock?
  5. Which Sitcom Character Are You?
  6. What’s Your Movie Genre Personality?
  7. Can You Match Song to Decade?
  8. Are You Main Character Energy?

Sport

  1. Can You Beat the Video Ref?
  2. What’s Your Olympic Sport Match?
  3. What English Football Club Fits?
  4. What’s Your Fantasy Draft Style?
  5. Could You Win a Gold Medal?
  6. What’s Your Game-Day Personality?
  7. What Sport Should You Try Next?
  8. What’s Your Soccer Superhero Identity?

Finance

  1. Are You a Savvy Saver?
  2. What’s Your Financial Personality Type?
  3. What Kind of Investor Are You?
  4. Can You Outsmart Online Scammers?
  5. Do You Spend or Save More?
  6. What’s Your Retirement Readiness Score?
  7. Are You Ready to Buy Property?
  8. How Well Do You Budget?

Automotive

  1. What’s Your Dream Car Type?
  2. Buy or Lease – What’s Better?
  3. Are You a Smart Negotiator?
  4. Could You Drive Stick Abroad?
  5. What’s Your Road Trip Personality?
  6. What Car Feature Suits You Best?
  7. Are You a Safe Driver?
  8. What’s Your Ideal Car Style?

Real Estate

  1. Where’s Your Dream Home Location?
  2. Should You Renovate or Sell?
  3. Could You Handle Tiny Living?
  4. Are You City or Country Living?
  5. Could You Survive the Van Life?
  6. What’s Your Home Décor Style?
  7. Should You Become an Agent?
  8. Where Should You Relocate Next?

Relationships

  1. Are You Ready for Real Love?
  2. What’s Your Love Language Style?
  3. Do You Attract Right People?
  4. Are You Marriage Material Yet?
  5. What’s Your Attachment Style Score?
  6. How Much Emotional Baggage Carrying?
  7. Are You a Great Partner?
  8. Which Dating App Suits You?

Health & fitness

  1. How Healthy Is Your Lifestyle?
  2. What’s Your Fitness Personality Type?
  3. What’s Your Daily Health Score?
  4. Do You Sleep Like a Baby?
  5. Are You Mentally and Physically Fit?
  6. What’s Your Ideal Rest Day Plan?
  7. Are You Ready for Yoga?
  8. What’s Your Nutrition Personality Type?

Food & drink

  1. What’s Your Food Personality Type?
  2. What Kind of Coffee Are You?
  3. Which International Cuisine Matches You?
  4. Are You More Sweet or Savory?
  5. What’s Your Signature Cocktail Style?
  6. What’s Your Ideal Comfort Food?
  7. What’s Your Snacking Personality Style?

Additional resources on creating a good quiz title?

The good news is that are a number of really good (and free!) tools out there to help you automatically analyze your quiz titles. Here are some of our favorites:

Emotional Marketing Value analyzer: this free tool from the Advanced Marketing institute rocks. Just copy and paste your quiz title – and it gives you a score about how compelling it is.

801 power words that convert: Jon Morrow over at Smart Blogger compiled this awesome list of 800+ words the grab attention – and convert into action… in this case, starting your quiz.

With words like audacious, colossal, phenomenal – it’s a fantastic resource.

How to create a good quiz?

Want to know how to create a good quiz?

These will help you write a quiz title and create a quiz that actually converts.

Have questions? Just ask in support chat here or on Riddle.com or email us at hello@riddle.com.

Why is the quiz title so important?

Because it’s the first thing people see. Your quiz title is your hook – if it doesn’t grab attention instantly, your quiz won’t get clicked, no matter how brilliant the content inside.

How short is TOO short for a quiz title?

Aim for 4–7 words. That’s the sweet spot for mobile screens. Short, punchy titles tend to perform best, especially when users are scrolling quickly.

Do good quiz titles really impact SEO and revenue?

Yes. Better titles mean more clicks. More clicks mean more time on site, which boosts SEO. And longer visits often lead to more leads, ad revenue, or sales.

What are EMV words – and why do they matter?

EMV stands for Emotional Marketing Value. These are words that trigger curiosity or urgency – like “secret”, “proven”, or “really”. They boost clicks and engagement because they tap into emotion.

Should quiz titles feel personal?

Absolutely. Speak directly to the user with “you” or “your” – it creates an instant connection and feels more relevant.

Is it okay to use emojis in quiz titles?

Yes – in moderation. A well-placed emoji can make your title stand out, especially in social feeds or email subject lines.

Can AI really help me write better quiz titles?

It can – if you use it well. AI tools like ChatGPT are great for generating ideas, but you’ll still need to refine and pick the best fit based on your audience and goals.

What’s a good AI prompt to get quiz title ideas?

Try something like this: “I’m a content marketer for creating a quiz about X for site Y. Give me 10 short, punchy titles (4–7 words), using ‘you’ and high-EMV words to boost urgency.”

What’s one thing to avoid in a quiz title?

Don’t be vague or generic. Titles like “Our Latest Quiz” or “Find Out Something New” are easy to scroll past. Be specific, emotional, and user-focused.

How do I know if my quiz title works?

Test it. Try A/B testing different versions, or watch engagement metrics like start rates and completion rates. The numbers don’t lie.

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How to Create GDPR-Compliant Interactive Content https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/data-collection/how-to-create-gdpr-safe-interactive-content/ Mon, 10 Nov 2025 16:35:00 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=931 We prepared this guide as a summary of the key areas to focus on if you want to create GDPR-compliant interactive content with Riddle’s quiz maker. In 2025, GDPR-compliance is more important than ever, with TikTok being fined €530 million and Google €200 million – and over €6.7 billion in fines since 2018.

A graphic showing the advantages and disadvantages of using interactive content in this era of GDPR compliance

Interactive content like quizzes, polls, personality tests, and mini-games are powerful engagement tools. But they are equally useful for collecting personal data from users for lead generation, contests, leaderboards, and more.

However, collecting personal information (PII) is serious business. To keep your business GDPR-compliant content, it’s crucial to follow the guidelines below.

Adding videos, images, or other content

Adding multimedia, such as videos, makes your online content much more effective. However, there are pitfalls to avoid since many services will collect personal data from your audience.

In particular, you should avoid these three services:

  1. YouTube
  2. Vimeo
  3. X (Twitter)

If you are using these services, it’s crucial ask the user for permission to load the content as these tools will load a cookie.

To make this easy for you, Riddle lets you create and show a permission screen before content from these networks is loaded.

Check out this help article to learn how to use this feature.

GDPR-compliant consent opt-in settings for YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter on Riddle's quiz maker.

Want to use videos in your Riddle?

We recommend uploading MP4 video files, as they will be hosted on our Riddle servers. Riddle will not set any cookies or trackers because we value your and your quiz takers’ privacy, ensuring GDPR compliance in your multimedia content.

(Plus they also look much better – without YouTube, Vimeo, or Twitter adding their own branding and controls to your Riddle.)

Collecting email and personal data

You have to pay special attention when dealing with personal data:

  • Please make sure to ask for permission – check out our templates for some sample legal language to remain GDPR compliant.
  • Use double opt-in (DOI) either via email or via a one-time code to stay compliant with GDPR.
  • Save lead data to Riddle or to an integration like Brevo.com which is also GDPR compliant.
  • The “Save to Riddle” option is easy for people who don’t want to send data to another email tool or marketing software.
  • Save lead data to your tool.
    If you save your lead data using another method, ensure it is GDPR compliant. (Most popular U.S.-based companies are probably problematic). (List of GDPR-compliant tools)
  • Meta (Facebook) Pixel
    Using FB Pixel is controversial in GDPR terms. We recommend against using it.
A guide to the GDPR-compliant options for collecting and storing personal data using Riddle's quiz maker

Riddle defaults that make your interactive content GDPR-compliant

  • We serve all Google fonts from our servers, ensuring GDPR compliance by avoiding third-party trackers.
  • All lead data stored on our servers is encrypted.
  • We never use trackers or cookies for your quiz takers — only completely anonymous local storage for features such as limiting how often someone can take part in a quiz, poll, or other Riddle content.
  • Our servers are in a banking-grade data center in Germany, operated by ourselves with backups in Luxembourg, and strictly adhere to GDPR regulations.
  • We do not use Cloudflare or any other CDNs operated by U.S. companies. Instead, we manage our Germany-based CDN ourselves, keeping your content GDPR compliant.

Any questions about creating GDPR compliant content?

If you have any questions about using Riddle to collect personal information – for example, for lead generation, quiz contests, or other interactive activations – we’re here to help.

As an EU-based company, we understand the importance of GDPR compliance and data privacy. Our entire team – from founders and product managers to developers – actively supports customers with questions like these. You can reach us via our support chat or by emailing hello@riddle.com. We’re also happy to arrange a support or Teams call to discuss your specific use case in more detail.

Riddle is trusted by some of the world’s leading publishers and brands, including Immediate Media/Burda (case study), 20 Minuten (case study), Club Med (case study), Tate Modern, and many others.

Founded in 2014, Riddle powers 2.8 billion quiz and survey questions every year for publishing partners. We bring deep experience helping organizations harness the power of interactive content while staying fully compliant with GDPR and other privacy regulations.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I collect personal data through quizzes and polls under GDPR?

Yes – as long as you obtain explicit consent. Always include a clear opt-in form before collecting any personal data such as names or emails. Riddle offers GDPR-friendly lead forms and double opt-in options to make data collection safe and compliant.

How should I handle email collection and lead generation forms in quizzes?

Always use explicit consent and double opt-in (DOI). You can save leads securely in Riddle or send them to GDPR-compliant email tools like Brevo. Avoid U.S.-based platforms unless you have additional safeguards in place, as many don’t fully meet EU privacy standards.

What makes Riddle’s quiz maker GDPR-compliant by default?

Riddle is EU-owned and operated, with all data stored on encrypted servers in Germany and backups in Luxembourg. The platform doesn’t use cookies, trackers, or U.S.-based CDNs, and even serves Google Fonts locally — all to ensure full GDPR compliance by design.

How can I make sure consent screens are GDPR-compliant?

You should always ask for permission before loading external media or cookies. Riddle provides built-in consent screens that let users choose whether to load third-party content. This helps you stay transparent, gain proper consent, and maintain GDPR compliance.

Why is GDPR compliance so important for interactive content in 2025?

With over €6.7 billion in GDPR fines since 2018, compliance is more critical than ever. Interactive content often collects user data, so following GDPR ensures you avoid fines and build audience trust. Platforms like Riddle are fully EU-based, helping you stay compliant automatically.

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Net Promoter Score (NPS): Definition, meaning & calculation https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/what-is-nps/ Mon, 10 Nov 2025 14:34:00 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=4193 What is NPS® ? The Net Promoter Score ® (almost always shortened to NPS ®) is a universal measure of customer satisfaction and the strength of customer loyalty. It is based on the key question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”

(You can use Riddle’s quiz maker to easily create your own NPS that completely matches your brand’s look and feel in under 60 seconds. Click here or scroll to the bottom of the post for more information.)

Definition: Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The NPS is measured on a standardized scale from 0 to 10. This scale is used as a response option to the above-mentioned question about the likelihood of recommending the company, product or service. The answer option “zero” corresponds to the fact that there will be no recommendation at all and the answer option “ten” corresponds to the fact that there will definitely be a recommendation.

The answers are divided into three segments, which are defined as follows:

  • Promoters (9-10): Customers who would actively recommend the company and are seen as loyal supporters.
  • Passives (7-8): Satisfied customers who will not actively recommend the company.
  • Detractors (0-6): Customers who criticize the company and could potentially spread negative word-of-mouth.
NPS (Net Promoter Score) customer segmentation - from detractors to passives and promoters.

How is the Net Promoter Score calculated?

The NPS is measured on a numerical scale (usually from 0 to 10) and is calculated as the difference between the percentage of promoters (customers who give a rating of 9 or 10) and the percentage of detractors (customers who give a rating of 0 to 6).

The formula is:

NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors

The NPS provides a comparable, quantitative indicator of customer satisfaction. Smart business can measure changes in NPS, and map them to new features in the product or changes in customer care.

Example calculation

The NPS has a general value range of -100 to 100. Suppose the NPS survey receives 100 responses, of which 60 are promoters, 20 are passives and 20 are detractors. This results in an NPS of 40.

NPS = 60/100 – 20/100 = 60% – 20% = 40

A negative NPS would occur, for example, if the 100 responses included 20 promoters, 40 passives and 40 detractors:

NPS = 20% – 40% = -20

For reference, in 2025, the average Net Promoter Score for 40 of the leading software makers was just 24% – ranging from Adobe Photoshop (at -9%) to Google Docs (+52%). (Source: MeasuringU)

Example NPS survey – created with Riddle.com

Create your own NPS survey for free with our 14 day free trial.

What factors influence the NPS?

Typical factors that influence the NPS are:

  • Product quality and freedom from defects – does the product perform its tasks without problems and without causing defects?
  • Customer service – how quickly are customer queries responded to and can customer service provide assistance?
  • User-friendliness – can customers quickly find their way around the product without much help? How steep is the learning curve? Can important functions be quickly found without problems?
  • Value for money – does the product deliver value that matches the price?

In addition to these internal factors, external factors can also influence the NPS. A better or comparable but cheaper competitor product will negatively influence the NPS if a customer is annoyed that they did not choose the competitor.

General market trends also influence the NPS, without any individual company being able to react to them. A good example of this is the hype surrounding bubble teas in 2011 and 2012.

During this time, numerous bubble tea shops opened and even large chains such as McDonalds added bubble tea to their range. After a report by RWTH Aachen University about substances in bubble teas that were allegedly harmful to health and a subsequent wave of negative reports, the market for bubble tea collapsed completely.

NPS surveys of large companies that have included bubble tea in their range suddenly show a change from a very high to an extremely low NPS value, without this being within the company’s sphere of influence. 

Sources: https://globaledge.msu.edu/blog/post/57326/the-bubble-tea-industry–how-one-drink-found-global-success and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea

What is a good NPS value?

A “good” NPS value depends heavily on the industry. For example, banks traditionally tend to have rather poor NPS values, while car brands tend to have very good NPS values.

The University of Bamberg has published a comprehensive study on various industries and compared the NPS values of individual industries and different user groups (non-customers, regular customers, etc.). For the UK, Marketing Weekpublished the NPS for some popular UK brands.

Across all user groups, Amazon achieved the best NPS value of 23, while Deutsche Bank achieved a value of -78.

Further sample values from the survey of regular customers:

BrandNPS value
Audi63
BMW61
Amazon60
Aldi44
Coca-Cola35
Pepsi25
Facebook18

(Note: this study is from April 2013 – today’s NPS values might be quite different)

But here, too, it is very important to differentiate who is surveyed. For example, if you only look at the ratings of regular customers, Audi, with an NPS of 63, is ranked first among the major brands, while Coca-Cola, with an NPS of 35, is only ranked 18th.

Generally speaking, the goal should be to achieve an NPS greater than zero. This ensures that there are more people who recommend the company than people who speak negatively about it.

If the company is not a well-known brand like Audi or Coca-Cola, it doesn’t usually make sense to conduct an NPS survey among non-customers. As soon as only existing customers are surveyed, the goal should be an NPS well above zero.

Industry-specific sample values

From the studies, one can see the typical NPS range for individual industries. These are as follows:

IndustryNPS rangeReason
Tech companies like Apple, Tesla, Netflix50 to 75Customers are often enthusiastic about innovations, user-friendliness, and high brand value
E-commerce companies like Amazon, Zalando30 to 60The NPS is strongly influenced by delivery times and return options. 
Financial sector with banks and insurance companies10 to 40Customers have high expectations in terms of security, transparency, and service, which often cannot be met.
Energy suppliers such as municipal utilities and electricity providers-10 to 20The industry is struggling with detractors due to price increases and generally poor customer service
Telecommunications providers such as Vodafone or O2-20 to 10The industry has a negative reputation in terms of contract durations and customer service. A positive NPS value is rare here.

The following scale can be applied to industries across the board:

  • NPS over 50 -> excellent
  • NPS from 0 to 50 -> shows that the company is performing solidly, but there is room for improvement
  • NPS below 0 -> there are serious problems with customer satisfaction

Advantages and disadvantages of the NPS

The main advantage of the NPS value is the easy comparability between periods within one’s own company and with companies in the same industry. Since it is a standardized question, one can easily observe the changes of the NPS over time and form correlations with product or process changes.

NPS can be used across industries and enables quick trend analyses.

One of the primary disadvantages of NPS is the fact that the standard version does not provide any justification for the rating. Of course, you can ask follow-up questions based on the rating using suitable tools. This requires branching logic so that a suitable follow-up question can be asked depending on the rating. For example, “What is the main reason you would not recommend us?”

Another disadvantage is that the evaluation often depends very much on the last user experience. A generally satisfied user who has encountered a disturbing product error shortly before the survey will almost certainly not give a good evaluation, even if they have been satisfied with the product for years. The customer status (regular customer, occasional user, new user, etc.) can also have a significant influence on the NPS.

Advantages and disadvantages around using the NPS (Net Promoter Score)

Ideally, the customer status is transferred to the NPS tool so that it can be taken into account in the evaluation. With Riddle, this is very easy to do using the Riddle Data Layer. This allows the customer status to be transferred completely anonymously to the NPS survey and stored together with the survey result.

Areas of application for the Net Promoter Score

Below, we have listed some areas of application for the NPS for different industries.

Sports clubs

Measuring member satisfaction

A sports club could regularly send NPS surveys to members to find out how satisfied they are with training conditions, coaching performance, or club life.

Example: A tennis club asks its members about their satisfaction with court availability. Detractors might point out that the booking systems are inefficient, leading to optimization.

Improving events

NPS can be used for club events such as tournaments or summer festivals.

Example: Participants receive an NPS survey after a club run. Promoters might recommend the event, while detractors might criticize poor organization or a lack of refreshments.

Feedback for coaching performance

NPS can be used specifically for training sessions or coaches to measure the quality and effectiveness.

Example: A youth soccer club uses NPS feedback from parents to evaluate satisfaction with the coaching skills and interaction with the children.

Visit our dedicated page for sports teams to learn more about how Riddle can help with fan engagement and revenue generation.

E-commerce

Strengthening customer loyalty

The NPS shows whether customers are willing to recommend the company. Regular queries after purchases can help identify weaknesses.

Example: An online clothing retailer asks customers about their shopping experience. Low scores could indicate long delivery times or poor product quality, while promoters praise the easy returns process.

Optimizing the user experience

A low NPS can indicate problems with navigation or checkout.

Example: An electronics retailer introduces an NPS after using its app and discovers that detractors are often dissatisfied with the search function. A better search feature can increase the NPS.

Targeted customer approach

The NPS can be segmented to reward promoters with exclusive offers and to target detractors for recovery.

Example: An online furniture store offers promoters discounts on their next order and asks detractors for details of their complaints.

Publishers

Increase reader loyalty

Publishers can regularly ask their subscribers about their satisfaction with the content to understand what is well received.

Example: An online news portal like “Spiegel Online” uses the NPS to measure satisfaction with special subscriber content. Promoters praise investigative reports, while detractors criticize monotonous content.

Tailoring content to target audiences

NPS can help you better understand which topics, sections, or authors resonate with readers.

Example: A lifestyle magazine uses NPS surveys to discover that recipes and fitness tips are more popular than political analysis pieces and decides to focus more on these topics.

Optimizing the subscriber experience

NPS can be used to identify problems in the subscription process or with digital platforms.

Example: A publisher of academic books uses NPS for its e-book platform and finds out that many detractors are complaining about technical problems. The platform is revised to provide a better user experience.

Learn more how Riddle is helping leading global publishers to generate ad revenue, increase time spent on site and improve data collection.

Why is the NPS important for companies?

NPS is an excellent early indicator that can identify potential problems in the product or in the sales process. With constant monitoring, it is possible to react very quickly to problems that would otherwise only occur much later in the form of fluctuations in sales. In the long term, the NPS correlates with an increase in sales and the growth of the company in comparison to the market. The NPS can therefore be used very well to develop and test strategies that reduce churn rates in the long term and increase customer loyalty.

How can companies improve their NPS?

First and foremost, a poor NPS value is more of an opportunity than a major problem. Therefore, every company should dare to ask for the NPS, even if the expectations of the value are rather low.

As soon as a starting value is measured, you can actively work on improving the product offering and see the success of the changes to the NPS.

Strategies for optimizing the NPS

If the NPS value is poor, it makes sense to add another question to the standardized question. By using branching logic, you can ask detractors a different question than you ask promoters.

Though you can ask promoters why they recommend the product, it’s more important to ask detractors: “What is the main reason you would not recommend our product?” This can be a free-text question if no reasons are known internally, or a multi-choice selection if, for example, a list of common complaints can be provided by the customer support team. 

Based on the detractors’ answers, the problems can now be addressed directly and the product, communication, training, or support can be improved to permanently increase the NPS.

Calculate the NPS with Riddle

When using a Net Promoter Score block in a Riddle survey, Riddle calculates the NPS value automatically and also provides a corresponding classification of the value.

Example of an NPS calculation report in Riddle

Since Riddle also displays the development of the NPS over time in a graphic, you won’t need any other tools to calculate the NPS. The NPS block is available in all Riddle plans and can be used without limits for any number of surveys.

Create a NPS® with Riddle’s quiz maker

Want to build your own Net Promoter Survey? You can use Riddle’s intuitive block-based builder to quickly add one to your site – fully white-labelled to match your company’s branding.

As an enterprise quiz maker, used by thousands of the largest publishers and brands on the planet, Riddle has the in-depth content creation, analytics, and design features leading publishers and brands require.

We put together this handy help guide to help you get started.

What is NPS? Creating a Net Promoter Score using Riddle's quiz maker.

Another example Net Promoter Survey® built with Riddle

Making your own NPS is easy – we created this one in about three minutes, asking your feedback about this very blog post. (Please answer it – we always love to get feedback!)

Frequently asked questions

Who invented the Net Promoter Score?

The Net Promoter Score was developed in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company, in collaboration with Satmetrix. 

What does the NPS value indicate?

The NPS value indicates the likelihood that customers would recommend a company, product, or service. A high positive NPS indicates strong customer loyalty, while a negative NPS indicates dissatisfaction and potential churn. 

What does the NPS measure?

NPS measures customer satisfaction and loyalty by determining how likely customers are to make a recommendation. This serves as an indicator of a company’s future growth potential.

How does the NPS work?

Customers are asked a standardized question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our product/company/service to a friend or colleague?”
The answer is given on a scale of 0 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely). Based on the answers, customers are divided into three categories:
Promoters (9-10): enthusiastic and loyal customers.
Passives (7-8): reasonably satisfied but unenthusiastic customers.
Detractors (0-6): dissatisfied customers who will not recommend you.
The NPS value is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The passives are ignored. The NPS value can range from -100 to +100.

What is the difference between NPS and other satisfaction measurements such as CSAT or the Sean Ellis Product Market Fit Indicator?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and the likelihood that customers will recommend a company. It provides a comprehensive overview of overall customer satisfaction and loyalty. In contrast, the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) assesses satisfaction with specific interactions or aspects of a product or service. While the NPS focuses on long-term loyalty, the CSAT focuses on immediate customer experiences.
The Sean Ellis Indicator asks how disappointed you would be if the product/company/service no longer existed. This indicator is a very good measure of the product-market fit of new products. However, the inventor of this indicator – Sean Ellis – recommends refraining from using this question for established products, as it may raise concerns among customers that the product will be discontinued. For established products, the NPS is much more suitable.

How often should the NPS be measured?

The frequency of NPS measurement depends on a variety of factors, including industry, customer interaction rate, and the organization’s ability to respond to feedback. In fast-paced industries with frequent customer interactions, continuous or quarterly measurement may be appropriate. In other areas, an annual survey may be sufficient. It is important that the organization is able to respond to the insights gained in a timely manner.

How anonymous are the NPS results?

NPS values collected with Riddle are 100% anonymous. Riddle does not use trackers or cookies, and there is no way for Riddle, as the provider of the NPS survey tool, to link the vote to a user profile.
The creator of the NPS survey can, of course, choose to forgo anonymization and ask the user for data such as name and email and store this together with the NPS response. It is also possible to use the Riddle Data Layer to transfer your own customer data, such as the customer number, customer status, etc., to the Riddle and then store this data together with the survey results.

Trademark notice

Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter ScoreSM and Net Promoter SystemSM are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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Transform Engagement with Riddle’s Enterprise-grade Online Quiz Maker https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/riddle-com-your-enterprise-grade-quiz-maker-for-interactive-content/ Fri, 07 Nov 2025 15:48:02 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=3986 It’s harder than ever to capture (and keep) your audience’s attention in today’s digital landscape. Cutting through the noise requires innovative approaches and content that turns passive browsers into active participants. This is where Riddle comes in. As an enterprise quiz maker, Riddle offers a powerful solution to elevate your organization’s interactive content strategy.

Why enterprise customers use Riddle as your enterprise quiz maker for interactive content

It is increasingly difficult for content marketers to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Traditional content methods often fail to engage and convert. Also, measuring the effectiveness of content campaigns for your stakeholders can be complex and time-consuming.

In 2025, publishers and brands face a perfect storm – trying to capture and retain audience attention while the rise of AI means traditional organic search is undergoing a massive sea change. The good news? Quizzes and interactive content get up to 2X more engagement and 30% more dwell time.

Riddle addresses these pain points by providing an enterprise quiz maker platform for creating engaging, interactive content that drives results. With a wide range of formats at your fingertips, including quizzes, polls, and surveys, you can transform dull content into dynamic experiences that capture and hold your audience’s attention. 

Why corporates use the enterprise quiz maker from riddle.com

Introducing Riddle – an enterprise-grade, zero-code quiz maker

That’s where Riddle’s online quiz maker comes in. Your team will have access to a powerful platform to create engaging, interactive content that drives results – all 100% white-labeled to match your brands. With a variety of formats at your fingertips, including quizzes, polls, and assessments, you can transform dull content into dynamic experiences that capture and hold your audience’s attention.

white lable options with riddle.com

Engagement is just part of the puzzle. It’s equally important to monetize the increased traffic and time on your sites. Riddle also includes deep monetization options for your advertising sales and operations teams – by creating sponsored content or serving your own video and banner ads.

You have probably experienced the additional hurdles large organizations face when integrating new tools, from InfoSec to procurement and legal. Riddle’s enterprise quiz maker has extensive experience working with big customers. It features a comprehensive suite of back-end features enterprise-level customers demand, including:

  • Collaborative multi-user workspaces – for 10 to 10,000 creators
  • Single Sign On (SSO)
  • Robust analytics (including Riddle’s Looker Studio integration)
  • Rigorous compliance with InfoSec and data privacy regulations
Entprise grade compliance with Riddle.com

What is Riddle?

Founded in 2014, Riddle.com is an ‘all-in-one’ engagement quiz maker used by thousands of the world’s top publishers, brands, non-profits, and sports teams (check out Riddle’s case study library, including Tate Modern, Minute Media, and the Fiesta Bowl). Customers turn to Riddle to create quizzes, personality tests, polls, surveys, score/outcome predictors (e.g., ‘Who will win the World Cup final?’), leaderboards, contests, and more.

Beyond single or multiple choice questions, Riddle’s innovative block-based architecture lets you creators incorporate any number of blocks in multiple formats, all within a single interactive experience. Each Riddle supports flexible drag/drop branching logic, enabling editors to show different questions based on previous answers.

How to embed a Riddle quiz?

You can easily embed any content created on Riddle:

  • Responsive embed codes
  • WordPress plug-ins
  • Using our API within your CMS
  • Integratee into your organization’s apps (both Android and iOS)
embed options with riddle.com

30+ quiz, poll, and other creative formats

Enterprise-level organizations often have multiple teams and divisions using software (e.g., editorial, sales, marketing) – each with its own requirements. Choosing an interactive content platform that is easy to use – yet sophisticated enough to support a wide range of use cases is key.

Riddle’s enterprise quiz maker currently supports 30+ content blocks (and counting). Here is a sample of the types of questions you can include in each type of content.

30 content formats to create engaging content on riddle.com

Poll / survey question formats

  • Single-choice (‘What is the most important issue to you?’)
  • Multi-select (‘Pick your top 3 candidates’)
  • Reaction slider (Strongly agree -> Strongly disagree: ‘More needs to be done about online data protection.’
  • Upvote (‘Vote for your X favorites’ – list then automatically re-ranks based on audience rankings)
  • Swiper (Tinder-style ‘like or not’ – users swipe left or right to express their opinion)
  • Order it (Records choice by preference – ‘Rank these Olympic sports by preference – soccer, track and field, basketball, breakdancing…)
  • Likert/matrix – ask multiple questions using the same scale (e.g ‘strongly agree to strongly disagree’)
Poll and survey question formats with riddle.com

Online quiz question types

  • Single-choice (‘What is the capital of Canada?’)
  • Multi-select (‘Pick Newton’s three laws from this list of eight options)
  • TypeRush (‘Can you name all 50 U.S. States in under ten minutes?’)
  • Guess It (‘Who is this?’ – Wordle-style game where users have 4 clues and 5 guesses to guess the blurry photo.)
  • Order it (Place in the right order – ‘Rank these films by box office draw – Star Wars, Jaws, Pulp Fiction…)
  • Tap and find (Answers are hot spots on images – ‘Click where Cape Town is on the map’)
  • Spot the difference (Click on the difference between two images – ‘Find the 3 differences in these two photos’)
  • Type the answer (‘Which movie legend directed Taxi Driver?’)
Quiz question format with riddle.com

Personality test questions

The most viral and highest converting of our formats, personality tests give an overall result based on how the user responded to a series of questions. You can use this format to give results based on each user’s responses (e.g. ‘Which political party should you vote for?’ or ‘What Harry Potter character are you?’), as well as product recommendations and in-depth assessments.

  • Single-choice (‘Which issue is the most important to you?)
  • Multi-select (‘What 3 qualities describe you best?)
single vs. multiple choice polls

Predictors

Quick to create and highly social, predictors let the audience pick the winner or result.

  • Guess the score (‘What will the score be for the World Cup?’)
  • Pick the winner (‘Who will win the U.S. Presidential Election?)
Score predictor example

Leaderboards

Turn any quiz or predictor into a public competition. Boost engagement and retention across one or multiple quizzes (e.g. ‘Enter our 10 week summer trivia challenge!’).

  • Quiz – users get points based on the number of right answers and how fast they answer.
  • Predictor – points awarded based on the accuracy of each user’s guesses
Quiz Leaderboards

Free-form blocks (useable in all content types)

For maximum flexibility, Riddle also features non-question content blocks – you will be able to call out key stats or quotes, or provide additional context before moving to the next question.

  • Quote block – useful for stats or key quotes (’76.2% of voters think the government should do more about climate change.’)
  • Text/media block – our ‘freestyle’ block will let you and your team add text, plus videos, images, and other media, anywhere in the flow of a Riddle (e.g., ‘You’ve completed section 1 – here’s what you’ll discover in section 2.’)
Insert quotes and rich media

Upcoming content formats

Riddle is continuously evolving – to provide you and your team with additional formats or tools. For example, various interactive games and puzzles are also on our roadmap. 

  • Custom development – as part of Riddle’s Enterprise plan, you can also commission the development of custom features and formats for Riddle on top of the core features our enterprise quiz maker already offers.
  • Collaboration – Riddle features robust multi-user features that can support any number of creators from your organization, including collaborative workspaces (‘projects’)custom user roles, and a shared media library for your project members (e.g. for re-use of common assets).
create team based roles in the riddle.com creator

Insert images/videos/GIFs/audio 

Go beyond mere text – and turn your Riddles in to multi-media experiences. You can add the following in almost every location – from questions to answers, answer explanations or results:

  • Images/GIFs: upload your own, or search/use via Google Search, Pexels, or Giphy
  • Video: add your own MP4, YouTube, or Vimeo clips
  • Audio: insert MP3 audio files and a background image

You can also insert your organization’s own media or video library. Your creators can quickly use your own catalog of video clips or images for a faster workflow and avoid internal licensing concerns over hosting proprietary videos on YouTube or Vimeo.

media integrations on riddle.com

Accessible quiz maker – engage your entire audience

Riddle is an accessible online quiz maker – both for your audience and the creative tools for your editorial staff. This includes following WCAG 2.1 guidelines by supporting keyboard navigation, text to speech, and more.

Globally, more countries require public sector organizations to meet accessibility guidelines (including the UK’s 2018 accessibility regulations and the USA’s Section 508).

Extending these regulations to private companies is probably not too far away. Future-proof your organization by choosing an online quiz maker that already meets these requirements.

Riddle is WCAG compliant

Zero-party data capture & lead generation

Riddle is designed to make it easy to track your users’ interactions throughout their journey with any of our quiz, poll, or other formats and our drag/drop form builder.

Your teams would have the option to collect quiz takers’ information with ‘all in one’ lead forms or separate form blocks (as well as all of their Riddle results):

  • 16 types of fields – including name, email, dropdown, radio buttons, and text entry.
  • Fields can be used separately or combined in a single standalone form.
  • Fields or Riddles can also be prefilled with your users’ data using our data layer. For example, if your users are logged in, you could personalize a Riddle with ‘%firstname’ as well as pre-fill the log-in form.
collect zero party data using 16 different field types

Sending individuals’ Riddle responses to your CRM or CDP

By default, for privacy reasons, Riddle only stores the anonymous, aggregate statistics of your audience:

  • 254,352 people took the quiz
  • 76,251 answered question 1 as ‘A’, 63,158 as ‘B’, etc.
  • 75,612 completed the form
  • 3 min 12 seconds average time per user
  • 12,698 shares on social media

However, by adding a lead form or form block, you can save each user’s responses to your marketing software or data warehouse via native integration (e.g., MailChimp, Google Sheets, ActiveCampaign) or our secure webhook and Zapier connector.

collect zero party data

Data layer – no need for a lead generation form

Use Riddle’s data layer to pre-populate your Riddles with data from your CDP or CRM:

  • Personalize your quizzes – (e.g., ‘Hi %first name – let’s take a quiz’)
  • Pre-fill forms – increase opt-ins by automatically adding in the name/email and other info
  • Avoid forms altogether – send a hashed value to Riddle whenever a logged-in user takes a quiz.
    • Riddle would send back all quiz-taker responses via a webhook along with the hashed value.
    • Match the hashed value to the user in your data warehouse – avoiding the need for a form.

Quiz analytics and data visualizations

Riddle has analytics built into every piece of content to help you and your teams measure and optimize the impact of each Riddle.

  • Views
  • Starts
  • Completes
  • Form completions
  • Average time per user
  • Social shares
detailed audience analytics on riddle.com

You can view all of these statistics in Riddle’s highly customizable data dashboard, complete with customizable data ranges, downloadable reports, and more.

As part of Riddle Enterprise, you can also create your own data dashboards with Riddle’s Looker Studio app.

Riddle – a 100% GDPR-compliant enterprise quiz maker

With Riddle, your teams would be in complete control of data collection.

Here are just some of the ways Riddle complies with global data privacy regulations:

  1. Riddle does not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) with cookies or trackers, not even IP addresses.
  2. Riddle has its own EU-based servers – no cloud storage such as AWS or Google Cloud.
  3. No tracking of individual quiz takers’ data – your creators will completely control what information is collected and how it is stored. 
  4. Riddle does not collect or sell data generated from users of our creators
  5. No use of Google or other US-based analytics – although you can add your own trackers and pixels (like Google Tag Manager or Meta).
  6. Google Fonts – all Google Fonts are served directly from Riddle’s servers.
  7. If your teams add lead forms, your quiz takers can opt out of having their personal information collected.
  8. Your creators can also require double opt-in (DOI) – data is only stored from quiz takers who click the emailed confirmation link.

Check out this more detailed post about Riddle’s GDPR-compliance.

Robust API – embed, build, and collect statistics

Riddle features a robust API that can automate key tasks for you and your teams with these major capabilities:

  1. Embed: you can use our API to create your own widget in your CMS to simplify workflows – your creators would make content on Riddle and simply copy the Riddle’s ID (e.g., eFZd91ag) to the widget.
  2. Statistics: continuously receive up-to-date statistics around each of your Riddles – including starts, completes, social shares, and more.
  3. Builder: your team can programmatically create Riddles from a data source (e.g., ‘Create a quiz with 10 questions every week’ or ‘Create score predictors for each of the upcoming NFL games this season.’)

You can find our full API documentation here: https://www.riddle.com/help/api

Enterprise grade API at riddle.com

SSO, InfoSec, and server/traffic capacity

Riddle has been designed from the ground up to support the needs of enterprise customers. This extends to the critical back-end infrastructure that large companies require, including redundant servers, secure 2FA and SSO log-in for creators, and more.

Log-in and 2FA

  1. Accessing your team’s content and data on Riddle is only possible after successfully logging in to Riddle.com.
  2. The login is protected by a password and multi-factor authorization (2FA).
  3. The password must be at least 10 characters long and contain upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
  4. The 2FA can be carried out using a one-time e-mail code or authorization apps from Google or Microsoft.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

You can also integrate your organization’s Single Sign-On (SSO) system.

Riddle supports OKTA, OAuth, and other SSO protocols. Please contact support via chat if you have any questions.

Scalability & performance

Riddle is used by many of the largest publishers, brands, and sports organisations in the world. 

over 2 billion questions served by riddle.com
  • Micro-service architecture – each module of Riddle (e.g. embedded content and the creator) is separate. An update or bug in one element will not take the entire platform offline.
  • Constant upgrades to Riddle’s software and server infrastructure to rapidly serve content to our ever-growing audience.
  • Riddle also has mirrored back-up servers – to prevent downtime during maintenance windows and mitigate risks of outages.

InfoSec and security compliance

Riddle’s online quiz maker and embedded content undergo annual penetration security audits, and have also passed the rigorous InfoSec approval processes for some of the world’s largest brands and publishers.

  • Riddle is in now ISO 27001 certified.
  • Riddle’s servers are located in their own locked cages at Telehouse Germany GmbH in Frankfurt/Main.
  • A live backup server is at Luxconnect in Bettembourg, Luxembourg.

Server certification

  • DIN-EN-50600
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • ISO 9001
  • ISO 50001
  • PCI DSS

High-level encryption

Suppose you choose the ‘Save to Riddle’ option for zero-party data collection (name, email, etc., of your quiz takers). In that case, the data is stored on Riddle’s servers in such a way that access is only possible for the logged-in users who collected the data.

The end customer data on the servers is encrypted using the AES-256 algorithm and this data can be downloaded as XLS or CSV from our servers.

Unlimited usage – all plans

Riddle is unique in that our enterprise quiz maker offers unlimited usage/content creation, data capture, and traffic on all of our quiz maker plans

Riddle offers unlmited traffic, leads and content

Your organization would always get a simple consistent invoice – instead of paying higher or lower amounts based on the amount of traffic and leads your quizzes generated every month.

CFOs and finance teams appreciate this sort of predictable pricing, as well as Riddle’s full suite of payment options, including pay by invoice or bank transfer.

Looking for an enterprise-grade quiz maker? Talk to us.

Adding a new software tool to your organization’s tech stack might seem a bit daunting – you’ll need to go through stakeholders and navigate internal processes. 

Don’t worry. Riddle is here to help – with ten years of partnering with enterprise companies and organizations. 

Book a call with Riddle’s quiz experts. They can assist with everything from a product, technical, legal, or other perspective.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is an enterprise quiz maker?

An enterprise quiz maker is a robust content creation platform that allows businesses to build scalable, interactive quizzes for a variety of purposes — from marketing and lead generation to employee training and education. Unlike basic quiz tools, enterprise platforms like Riddle are built for high-volume usage, multiple users, and strategic integrations across departments.

How is an enterprise quiz maker different from standard quiz tools?

Enterprise quiz makers go beyond simple question-and-answer formats by offering tools for branding, advanced analytics, and workflow management. They’re designed to work across teams, support strict privacy compliance, and provide seamless integrations with sales and marketing systems. These tools are also capable of automating quiz generation and embedding quizzes into websites or apps with ease. Some leading examples of this type of solution is include Riddle and Digioh.

What features should an enterprise quiz maker include?

The ideal enterprise quiz maker should include a wide array of features — from custom design tools, user access roles, and real-time analytics to advanced lead capture, AI quiz generation, and full API access. Automation tools and CRM or CMS integrations are key for scaling content operations efficiently. These capabilities make it possible to engage audiences and collect data in one seamless platform, as offered by interactive content tools including Riddle.

Do enterprise quiz makers support team collaboration?

For large organizations, collaboration across departments is crucial. An enterprise quiz platform should support multiple users, each with assigned roles and permissions to manage content securely. Shared workspaces, version control, and internal commenting help teams stay aligned while producing high-quality interactive content. These collaboration features are seamlessly built into quiz makers like Riddle and Jebbit.

How do enterprise quiz makers support lead generation?

Quizzes are a proven way to collect leads, but enterprise quiz makers take this to the next level. With gated content, opt-in forms, and conditional logic, you can segment audiences and deliver personalized results that drive conversion. Platforms like Riddle also support real-time data syncing with your CRM and can track ROI from each campaign.

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Content Automation: 4 Powerful Ways Riddle Scales Engagement https://www.riddle.com/blog/use-cases/content-automation-with-riddle/ Thu, 06 Nov 2025 13:38:53 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=5639 If you’re a publisher, sports team, or brand looking to boost engagement, generate leads, and collect zero-party data, you’re likely already using or considering interactive content. Quizzes, polls, personality tests, score predictors, and mini-games consistently outperform static content when it comes to time on site and audience participation.

But here’s the challenge: how do you make interactive content a regular part of your publishing process without adding complexity or slowing your team down?

The answer is content automation.

Riddle offers a broad range of content automation tools that help you streamline interactive content creation and integration – whether you’re looking for a quick AI-powered quiz generator or a fully automated, API-driven content pipeline. You can start small, then scale up based on your needs.

Let’s explore how publishers like Immediate Media (case study) and brands like Club Med (case study) are using Riddle’s quiz maker automation tools today – from light-touch efficiencies to fully integrated content workflows.

Step 1: Light-touch content automation – fast content creation with AI

Create interactive content from a keyword or topic

Short on time? Enter a topic or keyword, and Riddle’s A.I. quiz maker will instantly generate a fully-formed quiz, personality test, poll, or score predictor. Your editors can then review and edit, or publish as-is.

This is a simple and effective way to use content automation to scale up your interactive content output without increasing your editorial load, while still maintaining full editorial oversight and guidance.

Example use case: Covering the Champions League? Just enter “Champions League 2025” and instantly get a quiz like “Which club should you support this season?”

This option is ideal for:

  • Daily editorial workflows
  • Smaller content teams
  • Brands creating campaign-specific content
Automatically creating quiz or other interactive content using Riddle's quiz maker AI chat bot interface

Turn existing articles into interactive content

Already published an article? Just paste in the URL into Riddle’s interactive platform; Riddle will scan the page, extract key ideas, and generate a quiz or poll based on the content.

This content automation allows you to:

  • Quickly extend the lifespan and value of existing content
  • Add relevant interactive elements without needing to start from scratch
  • Increase reader engagement on article pages

Example use case: Imagine your editorial team publishes a feature on recent political violence. By adding the article’s URL to Riddle, your editors could instantly generate an interactive quiz – for example, “How much do you know about the latest unrest?”

Automatically creating quiz or other interactive content by adding an article's URL to Riddle's quiz maker AI chat bot interface

Step 2: Content automation in action with question banks (powered by A.I. or uploaded spreadsheet)

Riddle’s zero-code Question Bank allows you to publish fresh interactive content at scale, without any editorial involvement or technical setup.

You can upload a spreadsheet of questions or use A.I. to populate the bank. From there, Riddle will automatically generate new quizzes at a time interval you choose – every hour, day, week, or more.

Once configured, the Question Bank handles everything:

  • Automatically creates and publishes quizzes based on the latest question set
  • Updates on a rolling basis, giving visitors a reason to return
  • Fully aligned with your branding and design settings
Automatically creating question bank using A.I. or uploading a spreadsheet of questions

This is ideal for:

  • Publishers offering daily or hourly quizzes
  • Sports media keeping score predictors up to date
  • Brands running rotating product or trivia campaigns

With the Question Bank, your interactive content stays fresh and relevant – without requiring ongoing input from your team.

Step 3: Smarter workflows with AI + API

Once your team is producing more interactive content, it makes sense to take the next step – connecting Riddle to your publishing systems for semi-automated workflows.

Here’s how this looks in practice:

Suggested workflow for teams using Riddle's automated interactive content tools - including our A.I. and API options

Editorial teams create articles -> Riddle auto-generates matching interactive content

You can set up a workflow where:

  1. Editors publish articles as usual
  2. Riddle, using our flexible API Builder, automatically generates related interactive content that seamlessly match your site and branding.
  3. Editors receive this content in a queue or CMS preview panel for review.
  4. Once approved, the content is published or scheduled.

This helps larger teams:

  • Increase speed while maintaining editorial oversight
  • Save time on ideation and production
  • Ensure every article is paired with interactive content that enhances the reader experience
  • Monetize quiz traffic – automatically add lead generation or interstitial ads from your ad server (Swiss publisher 20minuten.ch saw a 20% lift in ad revenue using quizzes).

Automate placement with embed placeholders

Manually embedding content into articles can slow your team’s workflow down. Plus, there is the risk of interactive content becoming out of date.

Riddle offers an automation solution with our embed placeholders – designed for automationto systematically show the right quiz, mini-game, or other content at the right time.

Dynamically display automatically created content using Riddle's embed placeholder to save editorial involvement

Simply add a simple placeholder tag to your CMS template, and Riddle will dynamically insert the right interactive content into the article based on:

  • Tags (e.g. ‘Home page’, ‘Quiz contest’, ‘Guess the score’)
  • Date
  • Pre-configured logic (e.g. ‘last published’)
  • Or randomly

Example use case: A news publisher wants to show users a new quiz every day on their home page – without their editors having to manually schedule and remove past quizzes. Each day their team could have AI programmatically create news quizzes with the tag ‘Daily news quiz’. The embed placeholder show could then show the day’s quiz (learn how).

This keeps your site dynamic and engaging, while removing manual steps for your editorial team.

Step 4: Full automation with APIs, data layer, and reporting

For brands and publishers looking to fully automate their content workflows, Riddle offers deep integration tools that work across content creation, audience data, lead generation, and analytics.

Set global project defaults

With Riddle’s global project settings, you can set up standardized configurations for:

  • Tracking and analytics
  • Data layer integration
  • Lead form behavior
  • Consent and privacy settings
  • Embed behavior
Ensure global consistency with tracking, data collection, embeds, and more for all automated interactive content using Riddle's global publish settings.

Once configured, every interactive element in that project inherits the defaults. Editors don’t need to worry about settings (e.g. ‘What tracking code should I use?’) – they’re taken care of automatically.

This is especially valuable for multi-team or multi-brand publishers who need to ensure consistency across large volumes of content.

Identify known users via the data layer

If your audience is already logged in or known (via cookie, session, or user ID), Riddle’s data layer can automatically:

  • Match quiz responses to individual users
  • Use branching logic to pre-fill or hide lead forms based on logged in status on your site
  • Feed back results to your CRM or CDP
Automatically pass data into automated interactive content to collect quiz responses with existing users in your CRM

Use case: A user logs in to your site and takes a product recommendation quiz. Riddle hides the lead form – as they are already a user. Then, Riddle maps the user’s results and answers to their email address, and pushes the data to your CRM – all without asking the user to re-enter their details.

This creates a seamless user experience while ensuring your data stays organized and actionable.

Automate lead capture with CRM integrations

Riddle integrates with your CRM or marketing tools using:

This allows you to:

  • Automatically send leads and quiz responses to your CRM
  • Trigger personalized follow-up campaigns
  • Enrich user profiles with quiz data
Seamlessly send all responses and data from automated content to your CRM for personalized follow ups by email

Example use case: A user completes a quiz on your site about electric vehicles and selects “I’m considering buying one in the next 3 months.” That data is immediately sent to your CRM and triggers a targeted email series – based on their timeframe and car preferences (e.g. ‘I am looking for a SUV.’) revealed by the quiz.

This moves users smoothly from engagement to conversion – all without manual handoffs.

Automate reporting with Riddle’s Stats API and Looker Studio integration

Creating interactive content is just half of the story – knowing how that content performs is just as important.

With Riddle, you can automatically track engagement, completions, form conversions, and more across all your interactive formats – quizzes, polls, personality tests, mini-games, and score predictors.

No more downloading CSVs or manually compiling spreadsheets. Instead, Riddle makes it easy to stream real-time performance data directly into your existing analytics setup:

Easily integrate data from automated interactive content to Looker Studio, in-house tools, or business intelligence dashboards.

Track:

  • Engagement (views, completions)
  • Conversion rates (form submissions)
  • Time on content
  • Performance by team, brand, or project

This content automation means your stakeholders, sponsors, or internal teams can get up-to-date reports – weekly, monthly, or in real time – without lifting a finger.

Example use case: Your marketing team runs monthly sponsorship reports – for every native content advertising campaign. Riddle feeds quiz engagement data into Looker Studio, which auto-generates and emails a report to each advertiser’s inbox each month – avoiding painful copy/pasting data to make manual presentations or PDFs.

A fully automated workflow in action

Here’s what a complete content automation setup might look like:

  1. Editor publishes an article.
  2. Riddle (via API and AI) generates a related quiz.
  3. The quiz is auto-embedded into the article using a CMS placeholder.
  4. The user takes the quiz — their identity is matched via the data layer.
  5. Responses and personal data are sent to your CRM through a webhook.
  6. Analytics data is streamed to Looker Studio or in-house analytics tools through the Stats API.
  7. (For sponsored content) Report is sent automatically to the client each month.

All of this content automation happens in the background — the editorial team maintains control but saves hours each week.

Diagram of complete workflow for interactive content creation, from editor publishing an article, related interactive content created and published on your site, data sent to CRM, and even reporting sent to your client.

Why content automation matters

Interactive content works – but scaling it takes time. Riddle’s automation tools help you:

Save time and increase output
Get more quizzes, polls, and interactive formats published without adding more staff.

Standardize quality and branding
Use global settings to keep everything consistent – look/feel (colors, fonts, CSS) tracking, lead forms, branding, and more.

Improve your audience data
Collect zero-party data tied to real users and send it directly to your existing systems.

Streamline your workflow
From quiz generation to CRM sync to reporting, everything runs in the background.

Start light, scale when you’re ready

One of the best parts of Riddle’s content automation features is that you don’t have to use them all at once.

You can start with:

  • Quick AI-powered quiz creation
  • Article-based content generation
  • Manual embeds

Then scale to:

  • CMS placeholders
  • API-powered workflows
  • CRM and BI integrations

Whether you’re a small publisher looking to boost engagement, or a global brand managing multiple teams and regions, Riddle grows with you.

You can also try Riddle’s quiz maker free for 14 days – no credit card need and with all features unlocked, especially content automation ones like AI and our API.

Want a call with our interactive content experts? Always happy to have a chat – you can book a convenient time for your schedules here.

Ready to automate your content workflow?

Let’s make interactive content automation a seamless part of your publishing or marketing process.

Riddle handles the heavy automation lifting behind the scenes – so your team can stay focused on content, audience, and results.

What is content automation and how does it work for interactive content?

Content automation is the process of transforming existing human-written content – like blog posts, guides, or newsletters – into interactive experiences such as quizzes, polls, and personality tests. Automation tools analyze your article, extract key themes, and generate questions or outcomes that keep readers engaged while collecting valuable insights. Riddle’s interactive content platform integrates seamlessly into your editorial and publishing workflows.

Which parts of the content workflow should be automated (vs. manual)?

The initial content foundation should always come from humans because authenticity, expertise, and creativity can’t be replicated by machines. The best content automation strategy is to let humans craft the story, tone, and message – then use content automation to expand that content into interactive formats that attract and convert readers.

Is content automation replacing writers or editors?

No. Automation complements human creativity—it doesn’t replace it. The most effective approach is human-powered creation with AI-assisted expansion. Writers focus on strategy, storytelling, and tone, while automation takes care of repurposing and interactive formatting, saving time without sacrificing quality. Riddle’s content automation tools provide opportunities for human oversight at every step of the process.

How can content automation improve engagement and SEO performance?

Automating the creation of interactive content keeps users on your site longer, boosts engagement rates, and encourages social sharing – all major SEO ranking factors. A well-structured quiz or poll based on your article helps transform passive readers into active participants while providing fresh, indexable content for search engines. Riddle features 35 content automation formats – with dwell times ranging from 2 to 3 minutes for quizzes to 6 minutes plus for mini-games like Sudoku.

What are the best tools for automating quiz and poll creation?

Platforms like Riddle, Zapier, and Make (formerly Integromat) make it easy to turn text content into interactive experiences. Riddle, for example, can automatically pull information from your article and generate draft quizzes or polls – ready for your human review – then connect them directly to CRM or email tools for lead capture and personalized follow ups to engage and convert.

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Effortless Quiz Automation with Riddle 🚀 | Build Interactive Quizzes in Minutes nonadult
Make A Crossword Puzzle https://www.riddle.com/blog/news-reviews/quiz-maker-review/make-crossword-puzzle/ Thu, 30 Oct 2025 16:15:06 +0000 https://www.riddle.com/blog/?p=5666 Creating your own online crossword puzzle

Learn how to create a crossword puzzle with Riddle.com. Creating a crossword puzzle for your website is a fun activity and will also help you with reader engagement, plus increase the time your visitors spend on your website. Crossword puzzles will increase your revenue from ads and improve your search ranks as your users spend a lot of time solving them and often share their results – and your website – with their network.

Importance of interactive and engaging content

Getting readers to engage with your content is a key ranking factor for all search engines, which also affects your ranking in popular AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity. These tools also base their recommendations on search engine results from Google and Bing.

A crossword is consistently one of the most popular puzzle types. The New York Times website is famous for its New York Times Mini Crossword, which creates a crossword puzzle every day (a ‘quick bite’ 5×5 to 7×7 format) that is beautifully designed and not too hard to solve. By engaging readers in solving a crossword puzzle, you also get more attention for the ads on your page, which will increase your overall ad revenue.

Introducing Riddle: A high-end online crossword puzzle creator

engage your audience with a crossword puzzle

The Riddle.com crossword builder allows you to make a crossword puzzle that works really well on mobile devices and desktop computers alike. The flexible grid gives you the option to create easy-to-solve small puzzles or very large, extensive crosswords that keep readers engaged for half an hour or more.

With the 14 day free unlimited free trial option, you can create and publish a crossword puzzle with Riddle for your website or app – with no credit card required. In fact, building a crossword with Riddle is probably more fun than solving it.

We consciously decided against an AI crossword puzzle generator as they are not very ‘pretty’, displaying mostly empty spaces. AI has not been able to solve the puzzle of creating a crossword like the NY Times Mini just yet.

True, you can create them with the help of AI as we outline below, but that’s not recommended. Fully AI-generated crosswords that fill a symmetrical grid aren’t possible yet (according to the best AI researchers).

Play a live crossword puzzle from Riddle

This crossword puzzle was created with Riddle.com. We left all the reveal and check options turned on to make it a little easier to solve this puzzle.

Step-by-Step Guide to Create a Crossword Puzzle with Riddle

The crossword puzzle is just one of the many mini game types available in all Riddle subscription plans.

Step-by-step guide on how to make a crossword puzzle
  1. Create a new Riddle and select “Mini Game -> Crossword”
  2. Set the grid size from 5×5 all the way to 15×15 – Smaller grids seem easier to fill out at first, but you will find it easier to create a crossword with a bigger grid. Start with 7×7 or larger for your first crossword. Bigger grids give you more choices for words, especially if you combine them cleverly with blank spaces.
  3. Pick the theme – the best crossword puzzles have a overarching theme. Select a theme and start adding words related to the theme. Especially the longer words should fit the theme. A theme also makes it easier for you to come up with words than to create something completely random.
  4. Create a list of 15 to 20 words and add clues – Please avoid words shorter than three letters for your first word choice. You can use AI to find clues by prompting “I am creating a crossword puzzle, find a crossword-style clue for the word ‘TEAM”.
  5. Drag your longest words into the grid first – Riddle will show you visual cues if the word placement works with all intersecting words or if there is a problem.
  6. Aim for a high amount of ‘checked letters’ – A checked letter is a letter appearing both in a across and a down word. Focus on common letters for the intersections. Common letters in English are E, A, R, S, T, N, I, O.

How to find words for your crossword puzzle

Themed crossword puzzle example

The good old dictionary is still one of the best tools to find words. When looking for a letter word that starts with TE , you can go to T in your dictionary and go through all words with these starting letters to find a match.

Want to leverage AI?

  • Try this prompt: “I am creating a crossword puzzle. Find words that match the pattern TE?L. Replace any variable letter with a “?” AI will give you a list of matching words.
  • We have found all popular AI tools (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Claude) to provide excellent results with this prompt.

If you end up with 2 or 3 letter combinations that result from other words crossing, you can either:

  • Look these up in a dictionary
  • Ask AI if it can give you a good definition of the respective letter combination.

For example, when building a crossword, I ended up with the letters “NR” – and I was stumped.

I ended up asking AI with the prompt:

“I am building a crossword puzzle and I am left with the letters “NR” for a word. What would be a possible explanation I could add for that? I know this is not a common word, so I am also looking for common abbreviations that have a meaning using these letters.”

Shorter prompts just asking for explanations for “NR” will often have the AI give you a lecture about good crossword design instead of providing the needed clues.

Hint: The best results (as of October 2025) come from Google Gemini. The other AI engines tend to come up with quite a few hallucinations and wrong explanations.

Tips for Designing a Beautiful Crossword Puzzle for All Devices

Crossword puzzle design tips

Most users will visit your website from a mobile device (60% of all traffic as of 2025). Any grid size larger than 9×9 will be too small to read and complete on a regular phone. The very popular New York Times Mini typically sticks to grid sizes of 5×5. This is a perfect size for a phone, but also very hard to create, as your choice of possible words is extremely limited.

A good approach when you set out to make a crossword puzzle?

Create a series of smaller grids for your daily crossword and then provide a large crossword for the weekend, where readers may have the time to solve the puzzle on a desktop browser. Riddle will automatically adjust the crossword display and font size for each device, so you don’t have to worry about creating multiple designs.

(Just keep in mind that grid sizes above 9×9 will result in very small and hard-to-read fonts on a phone.)

Benefits of Sharing and Embedding Crossword Puzzles on Website

Adding a crossword puzzle to your website is a fun way to turn visitors into active participants. Instead of just reading your content, they can play, think, and interact right on your page. Crosswords keep people on your site longer, increase engagement, and make your content feel more dynamic.

When you share them on social media or in newsletters, they become great conversation starters that attract new visitors. With Riddle.com, you can create and embed your puzzles in minutes, match the design to your brand, and give your audience something fun and memorable to enjoy. All social shares will lead straight back to your website.

Exploring Additional Features and Customization Options

As with any Riddle mini game, quiz or puzzle, you have a wide range of customization options to choose from. For the crossword, the key options are:

  • Show rules
  • Allow guess-checking
  • Allow auto-checking of all letters
  • Allowing answers to reveal, especially the options to enable checking and answer revealing, can make your crossword really easy or super hard to solve. We recommend auto-checking options to avoid frustrations unless you are using your crossword for a serious competition. With the ability to add pre- and post-roll ads from your ad server as well as ad banners below and above the crossword, Riddle offers a wide range of monetization options (our Business Plan is required to serve ads). You can also use the crossword puzzle as a lead generation engine by adding a lead form either before users start to play or after they finish (or give up) and promise to provide the solution to the game via email.

Conclusion and Encouragement for Creating Your Own Crossword Puzzle

Give the Riddle crossword maker a try. You will most likely find that creating a crossword is more fun than solving one. Whenever I finish creating a beautifully filled grid, I proudly share it with my network and my readers.

After you built your first crossword, you will have a lot of appreciation for crossword creators. These games are not easy to create but offer a great sense of achievement. You will also find your website visitors loving your game and spending 5 or 10 minutes on your website, which will lead to your page ranking higher on Google.

Market overview – all crossword puzzle makers compared

Tool NameNotable featuresCheapest paid plan (monthly)Plan limitations
Riddle.comUnlimited crosswords, unlimited views and completions in all plans$69 Riddle branding
Qzzr.comFree for up to 300 completions, lots of other mini-games and quizzes$91,000 completions
Amuse LabsAI crossword creation (with lots of unfilled squares)$2495,000 views
ArkadiumContent created by the Arkadium teamask us pricingunknown
Puzzle.orgAI assisted creation, but AI comes with an added cost$10 (for schools)5,000 players
InteractyAI assisted creation$19100 views

Global Crossword Puzzle Platform Market Overview for 2025

The market for digital crossword puzzle platforms is thriving worldwide. In 2025, the global crossword and puzzle market (including crosswords and other puzzles) is valued at roughly $3.02 billion, with continued growth driven by cultural engagement and digital innovation. 

Publishers, educators, and brands increasingly use online crosswords to engage audiences and build habit formation on their websites. Launching a web app that lets publishers create and embed crosswords means entering a competitive landscape with both B2B-focused providers (serving media outlets, businesses, and schools) and consumer-oriented tools.

Below, we survey major competitors, their offerings, and pricing models – with an emphasis on B2B services.

Enterprise and B2B-Focused Crossword Platforms

B2B crossword platforms are geared toward publishers, media companies, marketers, and educational institutions. These services often support high traffic, branding customization, and advanced features (analytics, multiplayer, etc.). Pricing is typically subscription-based, with tiers defined by usage (number of puzzles or plays) and enterprise support.

Riddle.com – Crosswords, mini-games, quizzes, polls and surveys

Riddle.com is a versatile multi-format platform that offers unlimited usage of all content formats for one monthly fee.

The Riddle crossword engine allows you to build crossword grids from 5×5 to 15×15 grid sizes with smart tools to help you with word placements.

The crosswords work cross-platform and are mobile-optimized. You can add pre- and post-roll content and also serve ads from any ad server above or below the crossword. Riddle also provides you with a flexible form builder to collect user data for lead generation, crossword raffles, and newsletter signups.

The benefit of using Riddle.com for creating crossword puzzles are the unlimited views and completions that are part of every Riddle plan. There is also no limit to how much content you can generate. Riddle content can be embedded via iframe and is optimized for mobile delivery. There is also an option to use Riddle content inside your native apps.

Pricing: Riddle has 4 pricing tiers that are all unlimited in terms of content, leads generated and usage. The main differentiator between the plans are styling options and advanced features like tracking, developer tools like API and JS events and connectivity to tools like Looker Studio for advanced analytics.

Riddle’s Essential Plan starts at $59 and allows you to create unlimited crossword puzzles. The Pro Plan starts at $119 and allows you to remove the Riddle branding. The Business Plan at $249 and the Enterprise Plan at $749 are targeting larger publishers and brands and come with a whole set of features that allow perfect styling with full CSS access, custom fonts, advanced connectivity and interoperability with your website and more.

Riddle is ISO 27001 certified, fully accessible and 100% GDPR compliant, which makes it a great choice for brands and publishers that need to follow current government regulations.

Competitive position: Riddle is a market leader in the interactive content market. With its previous focus on Quizzes, it is used on many leading publishers, sports and brand websites. Riddle’s recent addition of mini-games like Sudoku, Slot Machines, Wheel of Fortune and now Crosswords (in October 2025) will make it an easy choice for publishers who need more than just a crossword puzzle maker.

Riddle’s unlimited pricing and low entry level plans allow risk free usage, without any extra cost for successful crossword puzzles. Riddle also offers a risk-free 14 day trial that has all features unlocked.

Amuse Labs – PuzzleMe

Amuse Labs offers the popular PuzzleMe platform. PuzzleMe provides a robust toolkit: an online constructor for creating crosswords (and other puzzles like Sudoku, quizzes, etc.), easy embedding via iframe, and rich features such as multimedia clues, responsive design, multi-player mode, leaderboards, and analytics. Notably, PuzzleMe has an AI crossword generator to help create puzzles (e.g. generate clues from a topic or even auto-fill grids) and supports contest modes and custom theming. The layout of the AI generated cross words however are not great as too few words actually intersect.

Pricing: PuzzleMe operates using a freemium model.

A Personal plan is free for individual use (unlimited puzzles, embed allowed) but limited to 2,000 plays per month and no commercial license. For commercial use, the Professional plan costs $249/month (or $229/month billed annually) and includes a commercial license, priority support, contest/leaderboard features, and higher limits (up to 5,000 monthly game plays, 2 staff accounts, etc.).

PuzzleMe also offers an Enterprise tier starts at $500/month (usage-based pricing) with custom features, up to 5 staff users, on-demand play volume, white-label options, and an enterprise SLA. Wrapping things up, PuzzleMe’s pricing is primarily tiered by usage (number of puzzle plays/views per month) and feature set. All paid tiers allow unlimited puzzle creation; the limits apply to how many times users play the embeddable crossword. Amuse Labs also offers special pricing for small startups/teams on request .

Competitive position: PuzzleMe is a market leader in B2B crossword platforms, offering a polished solver interface. However, its usage based pricing makes it a very costly option for high traffic websites.

Arkadium (White-Label Games)

Arkadium is a long-established provider of digital games and puzzles to publishers. They have over 20 years in the industry, famously powering Microsoft’s Solitaire and supplying the daily crosswords for some of the world’s biggest publications.

Arkadium’s model is slightly different: instead of a self-serve puzzle creator, they offer a library of ready-made games (including crosswords, Sudoku, word searches, etc.) that publishers can license and embed as white-label content. Publishers using Arkadium typically get professionally made crossword content (e.g. daily puzzles from renowned constructors) delivered via Arkadium’s platform and customized to the publisher’s branding. Arkadium emphasizes its scale – providing over 1 billion hours of game engagement per year through its partners .

Pricing: Arkadium does not publicly list prices; deals are typically enterprise licenses or revenue-share agreements. Publishers can either license the crossword as a service (often ad-supported with Arkadium managing monetization) or pay for an ad-free white-label implementation. For example, Arkadium’s site mentions 300+ premium HTML5 games available for licensing, with customization to fit the client’s brand.

Pricing likely depends on the package (number of games, traffic volume, exclusivity of content, etc.) and is negotiated case-by-case. (One unrelated hint: Arkadium launched a consumer subscription Arkadium Advantage for $29.99/year, but for publishers the costs are much higher and bespoke.)

In short, Arkadium represents the syndication model – publishers pay for high-quality puzzle content plus a robust hosting platform, rather than creating puzzles themselves.

Competitive position: Arkadium is a major B2B competitor for engaging puzzles. Its strengths are the quality of content and its turnkey solution – a publisher can add a daily crossword or suite of games with minimal effort.

However, it’s less flexible for publishers who want to create custom puzzles in-house.

Newer self-serve tools (like Riddle) target those who have their own content or specific branding needs, whereas Arkadium serves those who want a proven plug-and-play game section on their site.

For a new web app entrant, Arkadium represents competition in terms of publisher budget: a client might choose to license puzzles from Arkadium versus using a new platform, especially if they lack a crossword constructor on staff.

Puzzel.org

Puzzel.org is an interactive content platform that allows users to create and embed various games, including crosswords. It’s a flexible, self-service tool popular among educators, trainers, and small businesses for embedding quizzes and puzzles.

For crosswords specifically, Puzzel.org provides an online crossword maker with customization options (colors, fonts, etc.) and HTML5 embed code. Besides crosswords, it supports many other puzzle types (word search, bingo, memory, etc.), making it a broad solution for gamified content .

Pricing: Puzzel.org operates on a freemium + subscription model, where usage limits are defined by “player sessions.” A free account allows up to 2 puzzles (activities) and 60 player sessions per month (i.e. 60 plays). To go beyond that, paid plans are available at accessible price points, especially for non-profits/education:

  • Education/Non-profit: Teacher plan at $30/year for 600 sessions/month, Teacher Plus $50/year for 2,000 sessions, and School $125/year for 5,000 sessions (with up to 5 teacher sub-accounts). These low-cost plans make Puzzel popular in classrooms.
  • Business: Subscriptions are also inexpensive: a Supporter plan is $100/year for 1,000 sessions/month, and an Ambassador plan is $200/year for 5,000 sessions/month  . (It appears one can increase the session quota beyond 5,000 – possibly by custom quote – as the website interface suggests adjustable options .) All paid plans include unlimited puzzle creation and full feature access (e.g. result tracking, embedding anywhere, etc.)  .

Importantly, a “player session” on Puzzel is counted per unique user per puzzle – if the same person plays a puzzle multiple times, it still counts once . This usage-based model means pricing scales with audience size.

Smaller publishers or blogs can pay just $100–$200 per year for a decent amount of plays, making Puzzel.org one of the more affordable B2B options for interactive crosswords. However, compared to Qzzr.com’s low price of $9 per month for up to 1,000 completions and Qzzr’s wider range of formats, Puzzle.org only comes in second as a choice for teachers and smaller publishers.

Competitive position: Puzzel.org’s strengths lie in cost-effectiveness and versatility. It’s a one-man project by a developer (Daan) but has gained global reach with localization in many languages . The platform might not have the enterprise polish or advanced analytics of PuzzleMe, but it covers the basics well: you can create good-looking crosswords, embed via iframe, and even leverage an AI “PuzzleGPT” generator for puzzles.

Given its low price, Puzzel is often the choice for small businesses or educators who need a few puzzles embedded without a large investment. For a new entrant, Puzzel.org represents competition on the lower-end of pricing – it sets an expectation that basic interactive crosswords can be very cheap (or free) up to a certain scale. Being a one man operation also carries a significant risk for publishers who might want to consider a more established competitor with a bigger staff and a global footprint.

Interacty

Interacty is a broader interactive content and gamification platform (founded in Europe) that includes a crossword puzzle builder as one of its product offerings. Aimed at marketing campaigns, media, and education, Interacty lets users create visually rich crosswords with custom designs, timers, leaderboards, and even the ability to export puzzles to printable PDFs.

It focuses on making puzzles engaging and on-brand: you can start from templates or scratch, style the crossword with your own background images, colors, and even incorporate lead-generation forms or competitions around the puzzle. Interacty essentially bundles crosswords into a suite of interactive widgets (quizzes, memory games, “spin the wheel,” etc.), and all can be embedded on websites or shared via link.

Pricing: Interacty uses a tiered subscription model with separate plans for individuals vs. business. Key plans (annual billing) are :

  • Starter – $14/month (billed annually). Up to 1,000 views/month and 100 leads captured; includes all game types, basic stats, and a few premium templates .
  • Basic – $29/month (annual) for 5,000 views/month, 1,000 leads, more templates .

For heavier use/business, the Pro plan is $85/month (annual) which allows 50,000 views/month, 10,000 leads, 5 team members, and other advanced features like white-label (remove Interacty branding), custom domain, Google Analytics integration, and priority support. (There is mention of a Pro+ or enterprise tier beyond Pro, though details weren’t fully visible – likely for even higher traffic and full white-label capabilities.) Interacty also offers a 7-day free trial (with Pro+ features enabled) so users can test all functionalities .

Interacty’s pricing is essentially based on monthly pageviews, and feature access. Unlike PuzzleMe or Puzzel.org, Interacty explicitly counts page loads rather than unique players – but the principle is similar: larger audience = higher tier. It does not limit the number of puzzles you can create, only how many times they are viewed/played per month across all your content.

Competitive position: Interacty competes by offering rich marketing features around puzzles. The ability to capture leads (emails from players), run contests, and integrate analytics appeals to businesses using puzzles for promotions or customer engagement.

It’s a B2B SaaS with a polished interface and has both educational and corporate clients. In the crossword space, Interacty might not have the crossword-specific pedigree of PuzzleMe (no famous crossword editors behind it), but it provides a solid, modern UI and gamification elements (timers, leaderboards, etc.) to make solving more fun.

For a publisher-focused app, Interacty is a competitor that positions crosswords as part of a larger interactive content strategy. Its pricing (Pro at $85/month for robust use) is expensive compared to Riddle’s $59 essential plan, especially if you factor in the view limit. A view based pricing is also very risky for publishers as they will end up paying for traffic to any web page that has an Interacty module embedded, regardless if the reader interacts with the game or not.

Other Notable B2B/Enterprise Options

  • H5P (Open Source/Enterprise): H5P is an open-source framework for interactive HTML5 content. It includes a crossword content type, allowing creation of responsive crosswords with customizable look and even randomized letter arrangements. Organizations can use H5P for free by installing it on their site (e.g. as a plugin in WordPress or Moodle). H5P.com offers a paid hosted solution for enterprises or schools to create and embed H5P content without technical overhead . (H5P’s enterprise pricing is based on number of authors and learners rather than puzzle count; exact figures aren’t public on their site without contacting sales.) H5P’s crossword is fairly basic but appeals to educational publishers who want an in-house, privacy-compliant tool and have a skilled engineering team on staff who can set up H5P and maintain it.
  • Syndicated Puzzle Providers: Aside from Arkadium, other syndicates like Andrews McMeel’s Universal Crossword or NY Times Games offer embeddable crossword content to publishers via licensing, but these are typically content deals (where the publisher gets a daily crossword feed) rather than tools to create custom puzzles. Prices vary widely; some smaller news sites simply embed free syndicated puzzles that come with advertising, while others pay for premium content. These providers are indirect competition, relevant if a publisher is deciding between “make our own crosswords” versus “license an existing popular crossword.”

Consumer and Educational Crossword Tools (B2C & SMB)

There is also a vibrant ecosystem of crossword creation tools for individuals, educators, and hobbyist constructors. These often overlap with B2B in functionality (you can embed puzzles from many of them), but their pricing and positioning target single users or small groups. Typically, these tools are lower cost (or free) and may not handle massive traffic or advanced branding needs, but they’re important competitors – a small publisher or independent blogger might choose one of these to embed puzzles instead of a pricier enterprise solution.

Qzzr.com – free crossword puzzle and quiz maker

Qzzr launched their free interactive content tools in September 2025. It offers a modern interface that provides a full-screen landing page experience and mobile-optimized embed code options. With many customization options and over 50 different formats its a viable competitor to the enterprise SaaS tools.

The crossword puzzle maker is part of the mini-games content format, which also offers Sudokus, a Wheel of Fortune, and a Slot machine. The Qzzr makers say that they plan to add more mini-games frequently. Qzzr was one of the first online quiz makers that recently relaunched under new ownership.

Pricing: Qzzr offers free use of all formats for up to 300 completions. While that sounds like a low number for bigger publishers, it will give smaller websites a few months of free usage, especially as only completed crosswords and quizzes are counted. Qzzr’s pricing beyond the free plan is extremely simple. You pay $9 for each pack of 1,000 monthly completions and you can cancel monthly.

Competitive position: If you don’t require unlimited completions as offered by players like Riddle.com, and if you are looking beyond just crosswords, Qzzr is the go to choice for serious hobbyist, educators, small publishers, coaches and consultants. No other tool provides such a rich feature set at $9 per month. If all you need is a crossword maker, also consider My Crossword Maker.

My Crossword Maker (Crossword Hobbyist)

My Crossword Maker (formerly Crossword Hobbyist) is a popular online crossword puzzle maker geared toward teachers, students, and puzzle enthusiasts. It provides a simple web-based interface to create custom crosswords with a variety of grid sizes and layouts. Users can print puzzles or allow them to be solved online. Importantly, puzzles can be embedded on your own site using a provided JavaScript snippet.

Pricing: My Crossword Maker is a subscription service with a very accessible price point: unlimited crossword creation costs $5 per month (or $4 per month if billed annually) . There’s a 30-day free trial, and no credit card is needed to try making printables/online puzzles. With a paid plan, users get unlimited puzzles and features like saving online, printing, and embedding. They also offer options to purchase individual crossword licenses for one-off events or to get a joint subscription bundled with their sister sites (a word search maker and worksheet maker) at a discount. For classroom usage, they even support collecting online student submissions for assigned crosswords .

There is no explicit limit on how many solvers can play an embedded puzzle; the model is that a single subscription covers your usage as a constructor, and puzzles you publish can be taken by unlimited users. In practice, since this service is designed for individual use, extremely high traffic might not be the norm (and if a site got tens of thousands of players, they might run into bandwidth issues). But formally, pricing is flat-rate per month for unlimited puzzles and plays, making it very budget-friendly.

Competitive position: My Crossword Maker is positioned as one of the best low-cost tools for making custom crosswords. Because of its affordability, a small publisher or a teacher might choose this over costlier solutions. The trade-off is that it’s a simpler, more barebones platform: it may not have the fancy interactive features or analytics that the enterprise solutions do. The embed functionality works but is essentially the same interface as on their site, with MyCrosswordMaker branding unless you arrange otherwise.

Overall, for individuals and small sites, this is a strong competitor (at just ~$5/month) offering essentially unlimited crosswords. If cost is a major concern but you need more than just crosswords, you should also check out Qzzr and their free plan for up to 300 completions.

Crossword Labs

Crossword Labs is a well-known, long-running website for generating crossword puzzles quickly and for free. Its appeal is the utter simplicity: you enter your words and clues, and it instantly makes a crossword that you can share with a URL, embed, or print. No registration is required and it’s completely free for basic use. There are no ads or watermarks on the output, which is quite generous for a free tool.

Key features of Crossword Labs include the ability to solve the puzzle interactively online, mobile-friendly display, one-click print/PDF export, and even export to formats like Word, PNG, or SVG for editing. Embedding is supported: after creating a puzzle, the site provides an HTML iframe code snippet to embed the crossword on any website. The embed is straightforward (a simple interactive grid), but not highly customizable – it’s a WYSIWYG solution .

Pricing: The core functionality is free. However, Crossword Labs offers an optional membership (paid account) for those who want extra features like privacy control. A one-time fee of $9.95 gives you a membership. Members can mark puzzles as hidden or private (so they won’t appear in public search results on the site) and can view answer keys of public puzzles.

Essentially, paying is only required if you need to keep puzzles secret or access answer keys easily – most casual users don’t need to pay. The creator explicitly states that “most people don’t buy one, because you can do basically everything without a membership (you’re welcome)”. There are no usage limits on free accounts: you can create unlimited puzzles, and any number of people can play them. Even commercial use is allowed; Crossword Labs confirms you can use puzzles for commercial purposes with no attribution required (though appreciated).

Competitive position: A small publisher could use Crossword Labs to create a quick interactive crossword and embed it at no cost. The downsides are that it’s a very basic platform – no fancy styling or advanced gameplay features, and no dedicated support beyond a FAQ. It would also be highly advisable to opt for the paid version to avoid having the crossword appear on other websites and create duplicate content (which is really bad for SEO). Also, the interactive solving interface is simple and functional but not as slick as newer platforms.

Crosshare

Crosshare is a newer entrant (launched around 2020) that has quickly become popular among the crossword constructor community. It’s a free, ad-free, and open-source platform for creating, sharing, and solving crosswords. Crosshare is community-driven: users (including many indie crossword makers) upload puzzles, and solvers can play them on the site or via an embedded viewer. It supports modern crossword features like puZ file import/export (for compatibility with other crossword software) and has a clean solving interface with timer, dark mode, etc.

For someone launching a puzzle on their own site, Crosshare offers embedding as well. In fact, Crosshare’s FAQ specifically addresses embedding: they encourage it and point out the advantages of their platform being open-source and free for this purpose . One can create a crossword on Crosshare and then use an embed code to place it on any webpage, similar to YouTube video embeds.

Pricing: Crosshare is completely free to use. The creator of Crosshare committed to keeping the site free and open-source, relying solely on donations from the community to cover maintenance. There are no premium tiers or charges for advanced features – everything (unlimited puzzles, unlimited plays) is available to all users. The project’s code is on GitHub, and enthusiasts can even contribute improvements or host their own instance if they wished.

Competitive position: Crosshare’s philosophy makes it a unique competitor: it essentially removes financial barriers and focuses on community and innovation. For example, Crosshare was known for hosting contests and featuring daily mini-puzzles, building a social aspect around crosswords. For a publisher, using Crosshare could be attractive because it’s free and one knows the platform is transparent (open-source code).

However, since it’s donation-supported, large organizations might be cautious about relying on it for high-traffic needs (no formal SLA or dedicated support team). Also, Crosshare is designed by and for crossword enthusiasts, so it might lack some business-oriented features (like branding customization or data analytics that publishers might want).

Nonetheless, it’s a strong competitor on the merit of cost (free) and has goodwill in the puzzling community. A tech-savvy publisher could integrate Crosshare puzzles and even customize the open-source code if needed.

Other Platforms and Alternatives

  • Wordwall.net: A popular tool in education for creating interactive activities (including crosswords). Teachers can create a crossword with drag-and-drop ease and either share a link or embed it. Wordwall operates on a freemium model (limited free usage, then ~$6–$9/month for unlimited activities). It’s mostly B2C (teachers), but a small website could use it to embed learning games. The drawback for publishers is that Wordwall content carries Wordwall’s branding and is not designed for heavy traffic.
  • Discovery Education Puzzlemaker: A classic free puzzle generator (by Discovery) that many teachers use to make printable crosswords. It recently added an online interactive option, but it’s very basic (no embedding, just a printout or image). It’s more of a legacy competitor for print crosswords rather than interactive web embeds.
  • Custom Development: Some large publishers have in-house solutions – e.g., The New York Times has its proprietary crossword system (with paid subscriptions for users), and others use custom HTML5 games. While not “competition” in the sense of a service on the market, it’s worth noting that a potential publisher client might consider building their own crossword applet especially if they want a unique experience. This is more relevant for very large outlets with resources.

Conclusion and our thoughts on AI crossword puzzle makers

The crossword web app market is a mix of global players and niche solutions, serving everyone from major news publishers down to individual educators. Globally, interest in digital crosswords remains high as they drive engagement and even subscription revenue for publishers (e.g. NYT’s Games). For publishers, brands, sports teams and leagues, Riddle stands out with its no limit approach.

While many tools offer AI to create a crossword, you will find that there is no AI available yet, that can build a good crossword. On average an AI makes a crossword puzzle with close to 50% empty cells and very few words that actually cross. There are numerous university papers on the topic. Large language models (AI tools) are good crossword puzzle solvers. So if you get stuck on a crossword, check out these tools to cheat if that is your thing.

This is what a typical AI crossword puzzle looks like, created using the Amuse Labs AI crossword puzzle maker with a topic where the AI should be able to find plenty of words: “American History”

AI generated crossword puzzle with lots of empty cells

Summary

  • Enterprise clients expect robust features (responsive design, multimedia, analytics, support) and are willing to pay for it – this is where PuzzleMe/Amuse Labs and Riddle currently dominate with a full-featured platform at professional pricing. Riddle’s long-standing service and no limit on views or completions appeals to those who want quality content delivered seamlessly .
  • Smaller organizations or independent publishers have many affordable options like Qzzr.com (excellent value, usage-based pricing) or Interacty (integrated marketing features). These competitors cover the middle ground with moderate pricing and flexibility.
  • Individuals and educators can essentially get by for free or at very low cost – from Crossword Labs’ free embedding to Crosshare’s open-source community approach, and low-cost subscriptions like Qzzr.com.
  • Mix it up – create frequent crossword puzzles but also add mini-games like a Sudoku to your website for a greater variability of content.

FAQ

How do I create a crossword puzzle?

First decide on the grid size you want to use. Bigger grids make it easier to find words, but are harder to play on mobile devices. Start with a 7×7 grid which provides a good middle ground between an ample choice of words and a good mobile display.
Next, select a theme and find one 7-letter word to be your starting point for the grid. Then create a list of 15 to 20 words for your theme. Make sure they are of various lengths but no longer than your grid size.
Use an online crossword puzzle creator like Riddle.com to drag the words into your grid and get visual clues if the word placement is valid. Start with your longest word.
Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to find words to fill out hard to fill spaces. You can paste patterns into these tools and ask for a word list to fit the pattern. For small 2 or 3 letter words also look for common abbreviations.

Can AI create a crossword puzzle?

AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity are currently (as of October 2025) not able to create crossword puzzles. They try if you ask them but they will all fail at the actual task. There are a few online tools to create AI crossword puzzles, which will output a working crossword. But these AI generated puzzles tend to have almost 50% of the squares left blank with very few crossing words. Its up to you to decide if you still call it a crossword puzzle if only 2 or 3 words cross. The current state of AI crossword puzzle tools are creating word search games and not crossword puzzles.

Which websites can I use to create crossword puzzles?

You can use Riddle.com, Qzzr.com, or Puzzle Me as good starting points.

How can I create a printable crossword puzzle?

The best tools to create printable crossword puzzles are My Crossword Maker and Interacty. You can also build a crossword Puzzle with tools like Riddle.com and print out the published version of the puzzle directly from the browser.

What is the best process to create a crossword puzzle?

Step-by-Step Crossword Creation Process

1. Select Theme and Grid Size:
Choose a theme for your puzzle (e.g., specific historical events, movies, or concepts).
Decide on your grid size. While 5×5 or 7×7 is best for mobile/daily puzzles (like the NYT Mini), start with 7×7 or larger (up to 15×15 on Riddle) for an easier first attempt, as it offers more word choices.
2. Generate Core Words and Clues:
Create a list of 15 to 20 potential words (avoiding words shorter than three letters) that fit your theme.
Develop your clues for these words immediately, focusing on clarity or creativity (cryptic/punny clues). Tip: Use AI tools like Gemini to help draft crossword-style clues.
3. Build the Grid Structure:
Drag your longest words into the grid first to set the main structure.
Aim for a symmetrical grid (divisible in half vertically and horizontally—a common standard for professional puzzles).
Focus on maximizing checked letters (letters used in both an ‘across’ and a ‘down’ word), prioritizing common letters like E, A, T, R, S, N, I, O at intersections.
4. Fill the Remaining Spaces:
Work on fitting the rest of your words, using the intersecting letters as constraints.
If you encounter difficult letter combinations (e.g., ‘NR’), use a dictionary or AI to find a matching word or a relevant common abbreviation for your clue.
5. Refine and Customize:
Ensure all clues and solutions are unique and fit the puzzle’s tone (cryptic or straightforward).
Add customization and monetization options (e.g., check/reveal answers, add lead forms, serve ads) using your builder (like Riddle.com).
Test the puzzle on mobile and desktop devices to ensure readability and usability, remembering that grids over 9×9 may display really small on mobile phones and will be hard to fill out on a mobile device.

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