Word Frequency Counter
See how often each word appears in a piece of text. Paste an article, essay or transcript to get the total word count, the number of unique words and a table ranked from most to least frequent.
Punctuation is ignored. Contractions like “don’t” and hyphenated words like “well-known” count as one word. Numbers count as words.
- Total words
- 0
- Unique words
- 0
How to Use the Word Frequency Counter
- Paste or type your text into the input box.
- Leave "Case sensitive" off to count "The" and "the" as the same word, or turn it on to count them separately.
- Read the total and unique word counts, then scan the table for the most frequent words.
- Click Copy to copy the word list, or Download CSV to open the full table in a spreadsheet.
Example
- Input
- The cat sat on the mat. The mat was flat.
- Output
- Total words: 10 Unique words: 7 the — 3 mat — 2 cat — 1 flat — 1 on — 1 sat — 1 was — 1
About the Word Frequency Counter
A word frequency count shows which words a text relies on most. Writers use it to spot words they repeat too often, students use it to analyse a passage, and marketers use it to check how often a topic or keyword comes up in a page.
Words are runs of letters or numbers, so punctuation such as full stops, commas and quotes is ignored rather than counted. Contractions like "don't" and hyphenated words like "well-known" stay together as one word. By default every word is lowercased before counting; words with the same count are listed alphabetically.
Common words such as "the", "and" and "of" are counted like any other word, so they usually appear at the top. The table shows the 200 most frequent words; the CSV download contains every word. The calculation runs in your browser with JavaScript, and this tool does not send what you enter to a Usevanta server.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the counter ignore punctuation?
Yes. Only letters and numbers form words, so "mat." and "mat" are counted as the same word, and punctuation marks on their own are never counted.
Are uppercase and lowercase words counted together?
By default, yes: "The" and "the" are both counted as "the". Turn on "Case sensitive" if you need them counted separately.
How are contractions and hyphenated words handled?
An apostrophe or hyphen between letters keeps the word together, so "don't", "cat's" and "well-known" each count as one word.
Can I remove common words like "the" and "and"?
This tool counts every word, including common ones. Look past the first few rows, or download the CSV and filter it in a spreadsheet.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
The calculation runs in your browser with JavaScript, and this tool does not send what you enter to a Usevanta server.
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