LinkedIn Crossclimb: the word-ladder rules, why the order is the puzzle, and today's ladder

The rules, and the two-phase structure

Phase one — the rungs. You start with a blank ladder whose top and bottom rungs are locked. Click or tap a middle rung to see its clue and type the word. In all 38 ladders in our archive (#856–#893, 3 September to 10 October 2026) there were five middle rungs; 33 ladders used four-letter words, four used five letters and one (#873) used six. You can answer the rungs in any order.

Phase two — the order. Drag the middle rungs so that each word differs from the next by one letter: SIDE → SITE → SITS → SETS → SEES (#860) is a valid climb; SIDE → SITS is not. When the middle rungs are in the correct order, the top and bottom rungs unlock.

Phase three — the top and bottom. Solve the top and bottom clues and type those words in. The Help page is explicit that they are part of the ladder, so each must differ by one letter from its neighbour. In every ladder in our archive the two end words also read as a pair — HIDE and SEEK, BONA and FIDE, LOIS and LANE, MAMA and PAPA.

Crossclimb is timed: LinkedIn tells you to solve the ladder “as quickly as you can”, and the results page compares your score with averages for all members, your company and CEOs. A correct ordering found quickly matters as much as the trivia.

Ordering the ladder without dragging at random

Solving the clues and then shuffling rungs by feel works, but there is a faster way, and it is mechanical.

For each pair of words, count the differing letters. Two words are *adjacent* only if the count is exactly one. Write the adjacency down (mentally is fine for five words): the words with only one neighbour are the ends of the middle chain, and the rest fall into place by following neighbours from one end. In all 38 ladders in our archive the adjacency worked out exactly like this — two words with one neighbour, three with two.

Because of that, the five middle words in each of those ladders fit together in exactly one chain, readable top-down or bottom-up. The top and bottom words then fix the direction, because each must be one letter from its own end of the chain.

If a word has *no* neighbour, one of your trivia answers is wrong: the clue has another answer of the same length, and the ladder is telling you which one it wants. Turning on Auto-check in the Settings menu strikes through an incorrect word as you type, which finds it faster.

A worked ladder: HIDE to SEEK

Crossclimb #860 (7 September 2026). Solve the five middle clues first, in any order, without thinking about the ladder: “One of eight in an octagon” (SIDE), “Page to visit on the internet” (SITE), “Uses a chair” (SITS), “Drops below the horizon, like the sun at the end of the day” (SETS), “Lays eyes upon” (SEES).

Now adjacency. SIDE–SITE differ by one letter (D→T): adjacent. SITE–SITS (E→S): adjacent. SITS–SETS (I→E): adjacent. SETS–SEES (T→E): adjacent. Every other pair — SIDE–SITS, SITE–SETS, SITS–SEES and the rest — differs in two or more letters. So the chain is SIDE – SITE – SITS – SETS – SEES, with SIDE and SEES as the ends (one neighbour each).

Once the middle rungs were in that order, the top and bottom unlocked. The top word had to be one letter from SIDE and the bottom one letter from SEES: HIDE and SEEK, which together make the name of the children's game.

Notice that the ladder did most of the work: knowing the top word is one letter from SIDE and the bottom one letter from SEES cuts the candidates to a handful before you read the clues. Solve the ends from the ladder, not from the clue alone.

What the clues are made of

The middle-rung clues in our archive are general-knowledge questions and definitions; the difficulty lies at least as much in the ladder as in the quiz. The kinds that recur in our 38 ladders:

• Definitions — “Lays eyes upon” (SEES), “Travel without a plan” (ROAM). The plainest kind.
• Objects and materials — “Screwdriver, chisel, or hammer” (TOOL), “Type of cushioning or rubber” (FOAM).
• Fill-in-the-blank — “The early bird catches the ___” (WORM), “‘Please ___’ (don’t hang up the phone)” (HOLD).
• Everyday knowledge with a number in it — “One of eight in an octagon” (SIDE), “One of eighteen on a typical golf course” (HOLE), “Package of 500 sheets of paper” (REAM).
• Culture — “Captain ___ (Peter Pan character, whose name is also something attached to his arm)” (HOOK).
• The top and bottom words read as a pair in every ladder in our archive: a phrase or compound (TOWN HALL, HIDE and SEEK, FLIP-FLOP, TEAM WORK), a duo (LUKE and LEIA, MAMA and PAPA), or two related things (SHIPS and FLEET, WINE and CORK).

Where Crossclimb games are lost

A wrong synonym. If your ladder won't connect, suspect the rung whose clue had two plausible answers, not your ordering.

Forgetting the top and bottom must also be one letter away. The top word is one letter from the first middle rung; the bottom word is one letter from the last. That constraint often solves the clues by itself: in #860 the bottom word had to be one letter from SEES, and SEEK is the word that pairs with HIDE.

Dragging before solving. Ordering is only useful once all five words are in. Solve first, order second — or turn on Auto-reorder in the Settings menu, which arranges the words for you once the middle rungs are correct.

Spending hints carelessly. LinkedIn's Help page lists two levels of help: Hint reveals one letter of a word, and Reveal row shows the whole word. Try Hint first; one letter plus the one-letter rule is often enough.

Playing against the clock

Crossclimb is timed, which is why it feels harder than its parts. A few things that make a real difference to the result:

• Read all five clues before typing. You'll spot the easy ones and anchor on them; a hard clue is easier once you know which letters its neighbours force.
• Turn on Auto-check and Auto-reorder. Both are in the Settings menu: Auto-check strikes through an incorrect word as you type, and Auto-reorder arranges the ladder once the middle rungs are correct (LinkedIn Help).
• Order with the one-letter rule, not by dragging and checking. Each drag-and-check costs seconds; the adjacency count costs nothing.
• Guess the ends as a pair. In every ladder in our archive the top and bottom words go together; think of the pair first and check the one-letter constraint second.

The five clues are the easy part. The ladder is the puzzle, and the caps are the reward for having done the ladder properly.— From the HintSheet Crossclimb notes

Crossclimb versus a classic word ladder

Lewis Carroll's word ladder — he called it Doublets — gives you the two end words and asks you to *invent* the steps between them. Crossclimb inverts this: it gives you the intermediate words through trivia and keeps the ends locked until the middle is in order. The creative step has been replaced by a sorting step, which is why the technique on this page concentrates on ordering rather than vocabulary.

How the game has changed

Crossclimb was one of LinkedIn's first three games, introduced by LinkedIn News on 30 April 2024 alongside Pinpoint and Queens; the announcement described it as using “trivia to create a word ladder that will unlock two final clues”. The current Help page describes the same core and lists the assistance tools that now sit around it: Hint (reveals a letter), Reveal row (reveals a word), and Auto-check and Auto-reorder in Settings.

Our own record starts on 3 September 2026. Across the 38 ladders since then the format has held steady: five middle rungs every day, four-letter words on 33 days, five letters on four and six on one (#873, FOSTER to FATHER). We have no data from before September 2026, so this page makes no claims about earlier changes.

Reader questions

"Two of my rungs were both right — why did only one count?" The ladder needs a specific word; a synonym that doesn't connect is wrong for the puzzle even if it fits the clue.

"Can I skip the ordering and just guess the top and bottom?" No — the top and bottom rungs unlock only once the middle rungs are in the correct order.

"Can the game sort the ladder for me?" Partly. Auto-reorder in Settings arranges the words automatically once the middle rungs are correct — but you still have to get every middle word right first.

Glossary

Terms as used on this site.

• Rung — one of the five clued middle words.
• Cap — the top or bottom word, locked until the middle rungs are in order.
• Ladder — the ordered rungs, each one letter from the last.
• Top and bottom clues — the clues for the two cap words, which unlock once the middle rungs are ordered.
• Adjacency — two words differing by exactly one letter.

A weekly rhythm

LinkedIn says nothing about Crossclimb difficulty by day, but word length in our archive does follow the calendar. Every Monday-to-Friday ladder from 3 September to 10 October 2026 used four-letter words; all five longer ladders fell at the weekend — five letters on Sunday 6 September, Sunday 13 September, Saturday 26 September and Sunday 27 September, and six letters on Sunday 20 September. If a weekend ladder has longer words, there are more positions to compare, so solve all five clues before you order anything.

Reader questions, second round

"Is there a hint?" Yes — Hint reveals one letter of a word, and Reveal row shows the whole word (LinkedIn Help).

"Do the caps count toward the ladder rule?" Yes: the top cap is one letter from the first middle rung, the bottom cap one letter from the last.

Frequently asked questions

Recent Crossclimb answers

Every past puzzle is in the Crossclimb archive. New here? Start with the Crossclimb guide.