About the Word Frequency Counter
Paste an article, an essay or any other text and the Word Frequency Counter lists the words you use most, with how often each one appears and its share of the total. Switch to 2-word or 3-word phrases to find the expressions you repeat.
Writers use it to spot words they lean on too much. SEO writers check which keywords a page really focuses on. Students and researchers use it to get a quick picture of a text, a survey or a set of interview answers.
Common words such as "the", "and" and "of" are skipped by default, so the list shows the words that carry meaning. You can copy the full list or download it as a CSV file. Everything is counted in your browser, so your text never leaves your device.
How to use it
- Add your textPaste it into the left box, drop a file onto it, or use Open file for .txt, .md and .csv files. Sample loads a short paragraph about coffee.
- Choose what to countWords counts single words. 2-word phrases and 3-word phrases count word pairs and triples that appear side by side.
- Adjust the filtersSkip common words and Skip numbers are on by default. Turn on Match case to count "Coffee" and "coffee" separately, and set the shortest word to count.
- Read the tableEach row shows the word or phrase, how often it appears and its share, with a bar for quick comparison. Show picks the top 25, 50, 100 or all.
- Copy or exportCopy puts the full list on your clipboard as two tab-separated columns. CSV downloads it with counts and percentages for a spreadsheet.
Key features
Words and phrases
Count single words, or 2-word and 3-word phrases to find repeated expressions and keyword phrases.
Common words skipped
A list of 188 frequent English words, such as "the", "with" and "would", is left out so meaningful words rise to the top.
Count and share
Every row shows the number of times a word appears and its percentage of the counted words, with a bar chart.
Phrases stay inside sentences
Phrases never run across a period, question mark, colon, semicolon, bracket, quote or line break, so you only get word pairs that really belong together.
Export
Copy the full list as tab-separated text, ready to paste into a spreadsheet, or download it as CSV.
Private by design
No account, no upload: word counts are worked out on your own device.
Examples
Finding the main topic of a text
The Sample button loads a 64-word paragraph about coffee. With the default settings, the top of the table looks like this:
| Word | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| coffee | 5 | 12.5% |
| beans | 3 | 7.5% |
| cold | 2 | 5.0% |
| good | 2 | 5.0% |
| water | 2 | 5.0% |
The status line says 31 unique words and 64 words in total. The shares add up to 100% across the 40 words that were counted after common words were skipped.
Measuring keyword density
Keyword density is usually given as a share of all words. To get it, turn off Skip common words and set Shortest word to 1. Now "coffee" shows 7.8%: 5 out of 64 words.
Counting phrases
Paste this text and choose 3-word phrases:
I drank a cup of coffee. Coffee, coffee and more Coffee! The cup of coffee was hot; cup of tea next time.| Phrase | Count |
|---|---|
| cup of coffee | 2 |
| coffee was hot | 1 |
| cup of tea | 1 |
| tea next time | 1 |
A common word is allowed in the middle of a phrase, as in "cup of coffee", but not at its start or end. That keeps phrases like "of coffee was" out of the list.
How the options change the count
For the same text, with the words "2026 was 2026." added at the end:
| Setting | Top words |
|---|---|
| Default | coffee 5, cup 3 |
| Match case on | coffee 3, cup 3, Coffee 2 |
| Skip numbers off | coffee 5, cup 3, 2026 2 |
| Shortest word 4 | coffee 5, drank 1, next 1, time 1 |
Tips
- Look at the words just below your main topic. If a filler such as "really", "great" or "important" sits near the top, your text probably uses it too often.
- For SEO, check 2-word and 3-word phrases as well as single words. People search in phrases, and the phrase list shows whether your page actually uses the wording you are targeting.
- Paste only the main text of a page. Menus, footers and cookie notices add words that distort the result.
- Use the CSV export to compare two versions of a text, or several competing pages, side by side in a spreadsheet.
- For a total word count, reading time and sentence count, use the Word Counter on the same text.
Common mistakes and limits
- Reading the share as keyword densityBy default the share is calculated from the counted words only, after common words, numbers and one-letter words are skipped. For density against all words, turn off Skip common words and set Shortest word to 1.
- Expecting word forms to be groupedEach spelling is counted on its own, so "bean" and "beans", or "brew" and "brewing", are separate rows. Add them up yourself if you want one total.
- Using the common word list for other languagesThe list of skipped words is English only. In other languages, articles and prepositions will show up at the top; turn the option off or ignore those rows.
- Chasing a "perfect" keyword densityThere is no ideal percentage. Search engines look at how useful and natural a page is, and repeating a keyword to raise its share makes the text worse.
- Forgetting that commas do not end a phrasePhrases stop at periods and other sentence marks, but not at commas. "Coffee, coffee" can therefore count as the phrase "coffee coffee".