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Word Frequency Counter

Paste any text to see every word it contains, how often each one appears and its share of the total. Sort, search, copy or download the results. Your text is processed locally in your browser and is not uploaded to Q3 Labs.

  • Free
  • · No signup
  • · Nothing uploaded
  • · Unicode-aware

Private by design. Your text is processed locally in your browser and is not uploaded to Q3 Labs.

0 characters

Results update as you type, up to 50,000 characters. Longer text (up to 1,000,000) is analyzed when you press Analyze Text.

Counting options

Case

SEO, Seo and seo are counted as one word, shown in lowercase.

Word frequency

Total words
0
Unique words
0
Most frequent word
–
Its frequency
–

Enter some text to analyze.

Copy and CSV include every word in the current order, not only the rows shown.

Free word frequency counter online

This word frequency counter lists every word in your text with its count and percentage, most frequent first. You can switch between ignoring and respecting capitalization, keep or split hyphenated words, hide very short words or common English stop words, and sort, search, copy or download the results as CSV.

It uses the same Unicode word rules as our Word Counter, so the totals agree (apart from hyphenated words, which this tool keeps together by default). Everything runs in your browser.

What is word frequency?

Word frequency is how often each word occurs in a text. It is descriptive: it tells you what the text contains and which words it repeats, not whether the writing is good or which words are important. In most English text the most frequent words are small function words such as the, of, and and to.

How a word frequency counter works

  1. Split the text into words using Unicode word segmentation (your browser's Intl.Segmenter). Spaces, punctuation and emoji are separators, not words.
  2. Normalize each word to Unicode NFC, so the same accented letter typed two different ways matches.
  3. Lowercase it, unless Case sensitive is on.
  4. Apply optional filters: minimum word length and English stop words. Both are off by default.
  5. Count identical words and divide each count by the total to get its share.

There is no stemming or grouping of related forms: run, runs and running are three different words, because a frequency counter should report what is actually written.

Word frequency example

This is the tool's Load Example text, and the table below is what it produces:

SEO helps websites grow. Good SEO starts with useful content. SEO content should help people find useful answers.

18 total words, 14 unique words.

Word frequency of the example text
WordCountShare
seo316.67%
content211.11%
useful211.11%
answers15.56%
find15.56%
good15.56%
grow15.56%
help15.56%

The first 8 of 14 words; words with the same count are listed alphabetically.

How to analyze the most common words in text

  1. Paste your text into the box. Results appear as you type.
  2. Read the summary: total words, unique words and the most frequent word.
  3. Sort by most or least frequent, or alphabetically, and choose how many rows to show.
  4. Search to find a particular word and its count.
  5. Copy the results or download them as CSV for a spreadsheet.

To see past function words, turn on "Exclude common English stop words" or set a minimum word length of 3 or 4. Filtered words are left out of the totals and percentages, and the tool tells you how many were removed.

Case-sensitive vs case-insensitive counting

For SEO matters. Good seo takes time. Seo is a process., the default (Ignore case) gives seo (3): the three spellings of SEO are one word. With Case sensitive they are counted separately: seo (1), Seo (1), SEO (1).

Ignore case suits most writing checks; Case sensitive helps when capitalization carries meaning, for example names, acronyms or code identifiers.

How punctuation is handled

  • Punctuation is never part of a word: "Hello, world!" gives hello (1), world (1).
  • Apostrophes inside words are kept: can't (1), don't (1), it's (1). A trailing apostrophe is dropped (students' counts as students).
  • Hyphenated words stay together by default: mother-in-law (1), well-known (1). Turn off "Keep hyphenated words together" to split them: known (1), well (1). En and em dashes always separate words.
  • Numbers count as words, and decimal points and thousands separators stay inside them: 1,000 (1), 3.14 (1), 2026 (1).
  • A colon between two letters with no space keeps them together, following the Unicode word rules: javascript:void (1). With a space after it (Note: this), it separates as usual.
  • Emoji and symbols on their own are not counted as words.

Word frequency and keyword analysis

A frequency list is a quick way to see whether a draft actually talks about its topic: if an article about email marketing barely uses the word email, something is off. It also shows repetition you might want to vary.

It doesn't tell you which keyword to target. The most frequent word is usually a function word, and a word being frequent doesn't make it important to readers or to search engines. Treat the list as a description of your text, and choose keywords from what your audience searches for.

Word frequency vs keyword density

Word frequency covers every word at once. Keyword density focuses on one keyword or phrase and reports how often it appears relative to the whole text. For a specific term or multi-word phrase, use the Keyword Density Checker. There is no ideal density; write naturally for the reader.

Using word frequency for content analysis

  • Editing: spot words you overuse (very, really, just) and vary them.
  • Coverage: check that the terms a topic needs actually appear.
  • Comparison: compare the vocabulary of two drafts, or your page and a competitor's.
  • Research: summarize survey answers, reviews or transcripts by their most repeated words.
  • Language learning: find the most common words in a text you're studying.

International and Unicode text

Words are found with Unicode word segmentation, not by splitting on spaces, so the tool works across scripts: नमस्ते (2), दुनिया (1) (Hindi), مرحبا (2), بالعالم (1) (Arabic), and accented Latin letters, where café (2).

Chinese and Japanese don't put spaces between words, so the browser uses a built-in dictionary to find word boundaries. Results for those languages depend on your browser and can differ slightly between Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Lowercasing uses standard Unicode rules, which are not locale-specific.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a word frequency counter?

A tool that lists every word in a piece of text and how many times it appears, usually with each word's share of the total. It answers "which words do I use most?" at a glance.

How is word frequency calculated?

The text is split into words, each word is normalized (and lowercased unless you choose Case sensitive), and identical words are counted together. A word's share is its count divided by the total number of words counted, times 100.

What is the difference between total words and unique words?

Total words counts every occurrence; unique words counts each different word once. "the cat and the hat" has 5 total words and 4 unique words, because "the" appears twice.

Does punctuation affect word counts?

No. Commas, periods, question marks, brackets and quotation marks are not words and don't stick to words, so "Hello," and "hello" count as the same word. Apostrophes inside words are kept (don't, it's), as are decimal points and thousands separators in numbers (3.14, 1,000).

Does capitalization matter?

Not by default: SEO, Seo and seo are counted as one word and shown in lowercase. Switch Case to Case sensitive to count each capitalization separately.

Are numbers counted as words?

Yes. Standalone numbers such as 2026 or 42 are counted like words. Punctuation and symbols on their own, and emoji, are not counted.

Can I analyze long text?

Yes, up to 1,000,000 characters, which is well over 100,000 words of English. Up to 50,000 characters the results update as you type; above that, press Analyze Text.

Can I analyze multiple languages?

Yes. The tool uses your browser's built-in Unicode word segmentation, so it counts words in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, French, German, Spanish and other languages, and splits Chinese and Japanese, which don't use spaces, into words using the browser's dictionary. How well that works for Chinese and Japanese depends on your browser.

Does the tool remove stop words?

Not unless you ask it to. Common words such as the, is and of are real frequency data, so they are counted by default. The optional "Exclude common English stop words" setting removes a short list of English function words; it has no effect on other languages.

What is the difference between word frequency and keyword density?

Word frequency counts every word in the text. Keyword density looks at one chosen keyword or phrase and expresses how often it appears as a percentage of the text. Our Keyword Density Checker does the second, including multi-word phrases.

Can I download the results?

Yes. Download CSV saves every word (or every word matching your search) with its count and percentage, in the current sort order. Copy Results copies the same list as plain text. Both are created in your browser.

Is my text uploaded?

No. Your text is processed locally in your browser and is not uploaded to Q3 Labs.

Is this word frequency counter free?

Yes. It is free and needs no account.

Can word frequency help with content analysis?

Yes, as a descriptive check. It shows which words dominate a draft, whether a term you meant to cover appears at all, and whether you lean on the same word too often. It describes the text; it doesn't judge its quality.

Does a frequent word automatically matter more for SEO?

No. The most frequent word is often a common word like "the", and repeating a keyword more doesn't make a page rank better; excessive repetition can read as keyword stuffing. Search engines look at what a page is about and how useful it is, not at raw word counts.

Explore more

Count words, sentences and reading time with the Word Counter and characters with the Character Counter. Check one keyword or phrase with the Keyword Density Checker, change capitalization with the Case Converter, compare two lists with Compare Lists, repeat text with the Text Repeater, or turn a title into a URL with the Slug Generator. For data, try the JSON Formatter, JSON Minifier and Base64 Encoder & Decoder. Browse all our free tools.

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