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Summary In spite of existing comprehensive studies on the behavior of steel plate shear wall (SPSW), some aspects of the SPSW have remained unknown, yet. One of the important aspects that is unknown is the crack effect on the SPSW behavior in linear and nonlinear zones. Some experimental studies have been reported that SPSWs were fractured due to crack propagation. Therefore, the crack effect on the behavior of SPSW should be accounted in considering of SPSW behavior. Although the effect of crack on the thin SPSW has been investigated to a limited extent numerically, stiffened SPSPW, especially diagonally stiffened SPSW, has not been studied. In doing so, in this paper, the effect of crack effect on the behavior of diagonally stiffened SPSWs is studied parametrically and numerically. Numerical results showed that stiffened walls exhibit better behavior in the presence of crack compared with SPSW in both elastic and inelastic zones. Because crack propagates in nonlinear zone, it has not effective on elastic behavior of diagonally stiffened SPSW. The effect of crack was also presented as mathematical equations to estimate load–displacement curve that are in agreement with the finite element results especially for wall thinker stiffeners.