Snapchat Score Meaning & Explanation

2023 Update: I have written a new and updated version of this article, because of all the new algorithm changes made by Snapchat: Snapchat Score: how it works and how to increase your score

There are many things about some of Snapchat’s features that don’t make sense at all. And the very vague explanations given on their website don’t help.

For one, their best friends feature is a total killjoy. And it makes no sense that the feature gets to be stickied on users’ public profile.

And then we have the Snapchat score system, a useless feature by all accounts, but a big mystery to us all.

What are Snapchat Scores?

According to Snapchat’s support page, Snapchat score is the total number of snaps sent and received.

But this may not be totally true, according to observations.

Below is blogger Katie Artemas‘s Snapchat profile.

Notice the score displayed on top of the best friends list. As you can see, her score is 1,546. This is her Snapchat score.

You can see your Snapchat score directly by going to your profile or by tapping on the square button at the bottom left corner of your main screen and then tapping on the ‘Snapchat’ link in the green section on top (refer screenshot below).

As you can see in the screenshot above, the number (386) on the left side indicates the number of snaps you have sent, and the number (677) on the right side is the number of snaps you have received.

Add up these two numbers and you have your Snapchat score, which is displayed on your profile.

Snapchat Score: The Unexplained Mysteries & Theories

The theories

There is a theory doing the rounds in forums and discussion boards that you get 12 points for each snap you send out to the first 3 people and 20 points for each snap thereafter.

This seems like a plausible explanation given that some users reportedly have Snapchat scores of 90,000 and more, some as high as 700,000.

Another theory, and the most widely accepted one, is that you receive 1 point for each snap you send out and another 1 point for each snap you open. If you send a snap to multiple recipients, you still only get 1 point.

And by snap, we mean a story, a video, a photo or a text. 1 snap equals 1 point.

If this was the case however, it’s highly unlikely that someone could ever get a Snapchat score of 700,000. It would mean that this particular user exchanged 639 snaps per day continuously for 3 years with her friends since Snapchat’s launch in September 2011 to January 2014, the date of the report.

Or maybe she’s lying. That happens too. But it’s possible she’s not because there are many others who report Snapchat scores of 100,000 and above, some as high as 370,000.

The mysteries

Snapchat scores fluctuate. Sometimes they go down.

A score that measures the number of snaps sent and received should and can never go down. It’s supposed to keep on increasing. But Snapchat’s scoring system has seemed to defy the laws of physics.

There have been numerous reports of users’ Snapchat scores going down. One user reported that her Snapchat score went down from 2000 to 165 overnight.

And some people who have only recently joined Snapchat manage to maintain scores much higher than others who have been around for ages.

While these scores don’t really mean anything in terms of social influence as Facebook likes, Twitter retweets or Instagram likes do, the mystery of it all invokes one’s curiosity. And we just need to know, don’t we?

While to some, these scores are a measure of one’s popularity, to some others, it’s sort of a game, a competition of who has the highest score. To the vast majority however of course, it doesn’t mean squat.

Snapchat Score: Explained

From all the observations that we’ve seen, we can only conclude that Snapchat scores do indeed indicate the number of snaps sent and received.

You receive 1 point for each snap — photo, video, text or story — you send out. You get 1 point for each snap you open. And as far as multiple recipients are concerned when sending out a snap, you only get 1 point, because in actuality you’re only sending out 1 snap.

This however is not a hard and fast rule. Your scores may fluctuate for no apparent reason. It happens, just as bad things happen to good people.

How to Increase your Snapchat Score

If you want to increase your Snapchat score, and I know many of you do, the only plausible solution from everything that we’ve so far outlined is to snapchat more.

It’s really as simple as that. Send out a text or a photo, do an instant text chat with a friend, and then another. The more you do, the higher your score is.

Don’t worry if your score doesn’t instantly increase when sending out a snap or opening a received snap. Sometimes Snapchat scores are updated instantly, sometimes it may take a full day to see the new scores. The scores are updated on a daily basis, if not instantly.

Have your own theory or story to Snapchat’s score system mystery? Let us know in the comments.