Best Free Sudoku Apps With No Ads (2026)

If you want sudoku without ads, you have three options: a free app that has no ads at all, a paid app you buy once, or a free app where you pay a subscription to turn the ads off. Most "free" sudoku apps on the App Store fall into the third group. They show a video between puzzles, a banner under the board, and a pop-up asking you to upgrade. This page covers the apps that let you solve without any of that, what "free" really means on the App Store, and how to check any app for ads and in-app purchases before you download it.

Why Ads Hurt Sudoku More Than Most Games

Sudoku is a focus game. You build up a picture of which digits can go where, and that picture lives in your head until you write it down as notes. A 30-second video between puzzles is annoying. A banner that loads while you are halfway through a scan of row 7 is worse, because you lose your place.

Ad-supported apps also have a reason to keep you tapping. That is why so many of them put hints, extra undo steps, or harder puzzles behind a "watch an ad to unlock" button.

Why Most Free Sudoku Apps Are Packed With Ads

Sudoku is a commodity. The format is public domain and a computer can generate valid puzzles in a fraction of a second, so hundreds of apps compete for the same players with the same kind of puzzle. Winning installs costs money, and the easiest way to earn it back from a free download is to show as many ads as players will put up with. The typical ad-supported sudoku app uses four formats:

• Interstitials between puzzles. A full-screen video or image after every puzzle, or every second or third one to seem generous.
• Banners during play. A strip above or below the grid that shrinks the board and sits close enough to the number pad for accidental taps.
• Rewarded videos. Watch an ad for a hint, an extra undo, or a harder level. Basic tools become ad inventory.
• A "Remove Ads" subscription. You pay, often every month, to take away an annoyance the app added on purpose.

What "Free" Actually Means

"Free" on the App Store only means the download costs nothing. In sudoku apps it covers five quite different deals:

• Free with no ads and nothing to buy: Rare. You download the app and play everything. Sudoku Royale (iPhone) and sudoku.coach (web) work this way.
• Paid once, no ads: You pay a few dollars up front and the app stays clean. Good Sudoku is the best-known example.
• Free with ads, pay to remove: The most common model. Sudoku.com and Brainium Sudoku both offer a premium tier that removes the ads.
• Freemium: Easy puzzles are free, but harder levels, hints, themes, or extra daily puzzles are locked behind a purchase or subscription.
• Free trial: Everything works for a few days, then the app asks you to subscribe to keep going.

If you want an app you can use for years without paying or watching ads, only the first two count. The rest of this page focuses on them.

Ad-Free Sudoku Apps Compared

Prices change, so check the App Store listing for the current price before you buy.

1. Sudoku Royale: Free, No Ads, Everything Included

Sudoku Royale is the classic sudoku you know, without the ads, the pop-ups, or the clutter. The app has no ad network built in, no in-app purchases, and no subscription. There is no premium tier to unlock, so the version you download is the whole app. There are no coins, no energy meter, and no "watch an ad to continue".

What you get for free:

• Classic puzzles: unlimited puzzles across six levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert, Master and Extreme. Easy and Medium are open from the start, and each higher level opens after you solve a few puzzles at the level below. There is no limit on mistakes and no countdown. Classic puzzles are cached on your phone, so they work offline. See the Classic guide.
• Daily Challenge: one fresh puzzle every day, the same for everyone, with streaks, an archive of past days, and a leaderboard you can filter to friends. See the daily sudoku guide.
• Journey: an 88-level map in 10 chapters that teaches techniques from naked singles to XY-Wing as you climb.
• Hints, lessons and drills: hints that name the technique instead of just filling a number, Dojo technique drills, and the Sensei Royale coach, which picks the technique costing you the most time.
• Belts: a weekly league from White to Black belt that fills up as you solve. Nothing to buy to climb it.
• The usual tools: a Notes toggle for pencil marks, same-number highlighting, a light or dark theme, and two ways to enter digits (cell first or number first).

There are also optional live matches if you ever want to race other players on one shared grid. They are free too, and you never have to touch them.

The catch: iPhone only. There is no Android version. It is classic 9x9 sudoku only, so no Killer or Samurai variants, and the Daily Challenge and hints need a connection. For how to weigh trade-offs like these, see our guide to the best sudoku apps.

2. sudoku.coach: Free and Ad-Free in a Browser

sudoku.coach is a free sudoku website with no ads. It runs in any browser, so it works on Android and computers too. Its strength is teaching: it explains solving techniques step by step, from hidden singles up to patterns like the Swordfish.

The catch: it is a website, so it needs a connection and does not feel as smooth on a phone as a native app.

3. Good Sudoku: Pay Once, No Ads

Good Sudoku by Zach Gage is a paid app, a one-time purchase of a few dollars. After that there are no ads and nothing else to buy. It is known for hints that point at the technique you need next, and for automatic pencil marks that handle candidate bookkeeping for you. For a closer look, see our Good Sudoku alternatives page.

The catch: you pay before you can try it properly.

4. Sudoku.com Premium: Ad-Free With a Subscription

Sudoku.com by Easybrain is the most downloaded sudoku app and has a huge puzzle library on iOS, Android and the web. The free version shows ads between puzzles and during play. A premium subscription removes them. Over a year, that subscription costs far more than a one-time app. See our Sudoku.com alternatives for a feature comparison.

The catch: ad-free only while you keep paying.

5. Brainium Sudoku Premium: Clean Once You Upgrade

Brainium Sudoku has a clean, minimal board and is available on iOS and Android. The free version has ads, and a paid upgrade removes them. If you already like Brainium, the upgrade is the simplest way to keep it and lose the ads.

The catch: the free version has ads, and the feature set is small.

Free Sudoku Without Installing Anything

If you only want the odd puzzle, you may not need an app at all:

• Google Sudoku. Search "sudoku" on Google and a playable grid appears right in the results, with several difficulty levels, notes, and undo. No download, no account. It has no daily puzzle, no stats, and no progress tracking.
• sudoku.coach. Covered above. The best free option in a browser, and the one to pick on Android or a computer.
• Paper. Our printable sudoku page has free puzzles to print. No screen and no ads, though also no checking and no timer.
• Open-source apps. On Android, F-Droid has a few open-source sudoku apps with no ads and no tracking. They are less polished, but they are free in every sense.

In-App Purchases: The Other Half of "Free"

An app with no ads can still be built around selling you things. The usual pattern is to give away enough to build a habit, then charge for what you actually want. From cleanest to most aggressive:

• No in-app purchases at all. What you download is what you get. Sudoku Royale, and Good Sudoku once you have bought it.
• One-time unlock. A free version with limits and a single purchase that opens everything. Fair if the free part is generous and the price is a few dollars.
• Cosmetic purchases. Themes and board skins. They do not change how you play.
• Locked features. Expert puzzles, hints, or the daily archive behind a paywall. The free version is incomplete by design.
• Consumables. Hint packs and extra undos that run out and must be bought again. The spending never stops.
• Subscription plus consumables. Pay monthly for access and still get offered hint packs inside.

Purchases also change how an app is designed. If hints are for sale, the app has a reason to make you need them. If Expert is locked, the free puzzles have to be just dull enough to push you to pay. An app with nothing to sell has no reason to tune difficulty, hints, or session length against you, so a hard puzzle is hard because that is what the level means.

Paid apps that still sell things

A price tag does not guarantee a clean app. Some sudoku apps charge up front and still list subscriptions or hint packs. Apple requires apps to disclose in-app purchases on the listing, so read that line before you pay. Good Sudoku is the model done right: one purchase and nothing after. Sudoku Royale goes one step further, with no purchase at all.

How Can an App Be Free With No Ads?

It is a fair question. The answer is that sudoku is cheap to run. A puzzle is a few bytes, and a solo sudoku app does not need a big content team or expensive servers. Sudoku Royale is a small, independent project built by people who wanted a calm sudoku app without ads to exist, so there are no big costs to win back from players.

Good Sudoku sustains itself the other honest way: charge once, then stop asking. Zach Gage has built several premium games on that model. Both approaches line up the developer's interest with yours. The model that does not is the one where the app earns more the more often it interrupts you.

How to Check an iPhone App for Ads Before You Download

App Store listings do not have a "contains ads" label, so you have to read the signs. Four checks catch almost every ad-supported app:

1. Look for "In-App Purchases". Next to the Get button, and again in the Information section at the bottom of the listing, the App Store shows whether an app sells anything inside it. Expand it. An item called "Remove Ads" or a premium subscription tells you the free version has ads. Sudoku Royale has no in-app purchases listed.
2. Read the App Privacy label. Scroll to App Privacy on the listing. A section called "Data Used to Track You" usually means an ad network is inside the app, because ad networks track you across apps to target ads. A clean sudoku app has no reason to track you.
3. Search the recent reviews for "ads". Sort the reviews or skim the one-star ones. People complain about ads fast, especially after an update adds more of them.
4. Do the airplane mode test. After you install, turn on airplane mode and play a few puzzles. Most ads need a connection to load, so if the app suddenly feels calmer offline, it was showing you ads.

Ways to Cut Ads in an App You Already Use

• Airplane mode. Many ad-supported apps cannot load new ads without a connection. Some cache ads in advance, so it does not always work. More in our guide to puzzle games with no ads, which marks the picks that work offline.
• A one-time "Remove Ads" purchase. If the app offers one, it is usually cheaper over time than a subscription.
• Switch apps. Your solving skill comes with you. The only thing you leave behind is your stats history, and most apps do not let you export it anyway.

If you are still choosing, our best sudoku apps list and the guide to playing sudoku on iPhone go further.