How to Use the Letter Counter
- Type or paste your text into the box. The table updates as you type.
- Read the count for each letter from A to Z, or switch the order to Most frequent first.
- To count one particular letter, word or phrase, type it into the search box below the totals.
- Click Copy counts to copy the full A-Z list (one letter per line) for a spreadsheet or assignment.
What People Use It For
- Word games and puzzles: check which letters a phrase uses for anagrams, pangrams and lipograms.
- Cryptography exercises: frequency analysis is the classic way to break a simple substitution cipher.
- Teaching: vowel and consonant counts for phonics and spelling practice.
- Design and lettering: know how many of each letter you need for signs, stencils or letter beads.
Letters, Characters and Words
A letter count only includes alphabetic letters. A character count also includes spaces, digits and punctuation, and a word count counts groups of characters separated by spaces. Use the word counter for words and the character counter for character limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the letter counter count?
It counts how many times each letter of the English alphabet (A to Z) appears in your text, ignoring upper and lower case. It also shows the total number of letters, vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and consonants, and each letter's share of all letters.
Are numbers, spaces and punctuation counted?
No. Only letters are counted. Digits, spaces, punctuation and emoji are skipped, so the total can be lower than a character count.
How are accented letters handled?
With "Count accented letters as their base letter" switched on, é counts as E and ñ as N. Switch it off to keep accented letters out of the A-Z table; the tool then tells you how many letters it skipped.
Is Y a vowel or a consonant here?
Y is counted as a consonant, together with W. In English Y often works as a vowel (as in "gym"), so treat the vowel figure as the count of A, E, I, O and U.
Can I count a specific letter or word?
Yes. Type any letter, word or phrase in the "Count a letter, word or phrase" box. Tick "Whole words only" so that searching for "cat" does not also count "category".
What is the most common letter in English?
E is the most common letter in typical English text, followed by T, A, O, I and N. Paste a long text into the tool and sort by count to see this pattern appear.