How to use the word frequency counter
Paste your text and a table lists every word it contains, with how many times each appears and what share of the total it makes up. The summary above the table shows the total number of words, how many different words there are, and how many are used only once.
Sort the list by Most frequent, alphabetically, or by Longest words. Raise the Minimum length to skip short words, or tick Hide common words to leave out words like the, and and is. When you're done, Download CSV saves the complete list for Excel or Google Sheets, even if it is longer than the table on screen.
How words are matched
A word is a run of letters and numbers. Apostrophes and hyphens inside a word keep it together, so don't and well-known each count as one word. Punctuation around words is ignored, so tools, and tools are counted together. Accents and letters from other alphabets, including Urdu, Arabic and Hindi, are kept as they are.
With Treat upper and lower case as the same ticked, Apple and apple are one entry. Untick it when capitals carry meaning, for example to tell the name Rose apart from the flower.
This tool counts every word without grouping forms together, so run, runs and running are separate entries. That keeps the counts exact and easy to check.
What people use word frequency for
- Editing. Most writers have words they lean on without noticing, such as really, just or very. Sort by frequency with common words hidden and your habits jump out.
- SEO and content research. Paste a competitor's article to see the terms it covers. For phrase-level analysis and focus keyword density, use the Keyword Density Checker.
- Language learning and teaching. Build vocabulary lists from a book chapter or article, starting with the words that appear most.
- Research. Compare the vocabulary of speeches, reviews, survey answers or interview transcripts.
- Word clouds. The CSV has exactly the word and count columns most word cloud generators ask for.
Why a few words dominate every text
In almost any text, a small number of words make up a large share of the total. This pattern is known as Zipf's law: the most common word appears roughly twice as often as the second most common, three times as often as the third, and so on. In English, the alone is often 5 to 7 percent of all words. Meanwhile, around half of the different words in a text usually appear only once. That is why hiding common words is so useful when you want to see what a text is actually about.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count how many times a word appears?
Paste your text and find the word in the table, or sort A to Z to locate it quickly. To check one specific word or phrase, the Keyword Density Checker's focus keyword box gives you its exact count.
Can I export the word list?
Yes. Download CSV saves every word with its count and percentage, and Copy as CSV puts the same data on your clipboard to paste into a spreadsheet.
Is there a limit to how much text I can analyse?
No fixed limit. Whole books can be processed in a few seconds. The table shows the first 1,000 words, and the CSV download always contains all of them.
Does it group plurals and verb forms together?
No. Each distinct form is counted separately, so book and books are two entries. This keeps the counts exact.
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