Free Word Frequency Counter

Paste any text to see exactly how many times each word appears. Sort by frequency or alphabetically, filter stop words, analyse keyword density and export results as CSV — instantly, in your browser.

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Word Frequency Results
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# Word ▲ Count ▼ % of text Frequency
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What This Word Frequency Counter Does

Paste or type any text into the editor above and the frequency table rebuilds instantly with every keystroke, showing every word in your text ranked by how many times it appears. Five live stats cards track total words, unique words, the number of results currently shown, the top word and its count — all updating in real time with no page reload needed. All analysis runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript; nothing is ever transmitted to a server, so you can paste confidential drafts, internal reports or sensitive client copy without any privacy concern.

The filter toolbar gives you precise control over what the results table shows. Use the Sort dropdown to switch between frequency descending (most common first), frequency ascending (least common first), A to Z and Z to A alphabetical order. The minimum word length field trims short noise words from the results. The stop word filter removes grammatical function words — articles, prepositions, conjunctions — so the table surfaces only the substantive vocabulary that defines your content's topic. Disable stop word filtering for linguistic or stylometric research where function word distribution is meaningful. Export the full results as CSV to copy into a spreadsheet or include in a content brief.

Tips for Getting the Most From the Word Frequency Counter

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a word frequency counter measure?

A word frequency counter scans your text and tallies how many times each individual word appears, then presents those results sorted from most to least common. The tally is built from a tokenised version of your text — the tool splits your content into individual word tokens at whitespace and punctuation boundaries, normalises them (stripping leading and trailing apostrophes, for example), and groups identical tokens together to produce a count for each distinct word.

The applications are wide. SEO professionals use frequency analysis to confirm that target keywords appear at healthy density without crossing into over-optimisation. Writers and editors use it to identify repetitive vocabulary that would benefit from synonym variation. Researchers use it to surface dominant themes in long documents without reading every word. Academic writers use it to verify that thesis-level terms are prominent throughout an essay. Use the Word Counter first to understand the overall scale of your text, then run a frequency analysis here to see the vocabulary breakdown in detail.

What are stop words and should I filter them?

Stop words are extremely high-frequency grammatical function words that appear in virtually every piece of English writing regardless of topic: articles like "the" and "a", prepositions like "in", "on" and "of", conjunctions like "and" and "but", and common auxiliary verbs like "is", "are" and "have". Because they appear so frequently, they dominate any unfiltered frequency table and make it impossible to see the substantive terms that actually define your content.

Keeping the "Filter stop words" toggle enabled — its default state — removes this noise so the results show only the meaningful vocabulary. Disable filtering only when function word distribution itself is the subject of study, which is common in authorship analysis, stylometry and certain linguistic research tasks. For everyday use — SEO auditing, content writing review, essay self-editing, competitive research — filtered results are consistently more actionable. If you are unsure, try both states: the "Showing" stat card updates instantly to reflect how many words each setting surfaces.

How is keyword density calculated?

The percentage column in the results table shows each word's count as a proportion of the total words in your text: (word count ÷ total words) × 100. Total words is the unfiltered count of all tokens in your text, not just the words currently showing in the filtered results table — this ensures the percentages are meaningful relative to the complete document rather than the filtered subset.

For SEO purposes, a primary keyword at 1–2% density is generally considered healthy — present enough to signal clear topical relevance to search algorithms without crossing into manipulation territory. Below 0.5% the term may be too sparse to register as a dominant topic signal relative to a competing page that covers it more thoroughly. Above 3–4% risks appearing artificially inflated to search algorithms and may trigger quality penalties on some platforms. After checking density here, verify your meta description and title tag lengths stay within Google's display limits using our Character Counter, and check overall word count targets with the Word Counter.

What does the minimum word length filter do?

The minimum length field excludes words shorter than the specified character count from the results table. The default value of 2 removes single-letter words like "a" and "I", which are almost always noise for analysis purposes. Setting the minimum to 3 removes two-letter words like "an", "is", "at", "in" and "we" — useful when stop word filtering alone does not fully clean up short noise words unique to your content. Setting it higher narrows the table to longer, more topic-specific terms.

Results update instantly when you change the value — no need to re-paste your text. The "Showing" count in the stats bar reflects the current filtered view so you can see immediately how many words each setting exposes. For SEO and content analysis, a minimum length of 3 combined with stop word filtering on gives the cleanest view of the vocabulary that actually characterises your document. For comprehensive linguistic data that includes every token, set the minimum to 1 and disable stop word filtering.

Can I export the frequency results?

Yes — two export options are available beneath the results table. "Copy as CSV" copies the full filtered and sorted results table to your clipboard in comma-separated format, ready to paste directly into a Google Sheet, Excel workbook or any text editor. "Download CSV" saves the same data as a .csv file to your device, which opens automatically in your default spreadsheet application on most operating systems.

Both exports include four columns: Rank, Word, Count and Percentage. The data in the export reflects exactly what the results table is showing at the moment of export — the current sort order, stop word filter state, minimum length setting and case sensitivity mode are all applied to the exported data. If you want the unfiltered complete word list, disable stop word filtering and set minimum length to 1 before exporting. Once you have identified your high-frequency keywords, use our Text to Slug Generator to convert them into clean, URL-friendly slugs for web pages and blog posts.

Does case sensitivity affect the word count?

By default the tool is case-insensitive: "The", "the" and "THE" are all counted as the same word and their individual appearances are summed into a single row. This is the appropriate setting for prose, marketing copy, email text, blog content and most writing where capitalisation is stylistic rather than meaningful — a capital letter at the start of a sentence does not make "The" a different word from "the".

Enabling case-sensitive mode treats each capitalisation variant as a distinct word. This is particularly useful for technical documentation and code analysis where capitalisation carries semantic meaning — "API" (an acronym), "api" (a variable name) and "Api" (a class name) may genuinely represent different concepts and should be counted separately. It is also useful for brand name analysis where "Apple" (the company) and "apple" (the fruit) might both appear in the same text. Toggle the checkbox and the results table rebuilds immediately with the new grouping — no need to re-paste your content.

How does this differ from the keyword panel in the Word Counter?

The Word Counter includes a quick keyword density panel showing the top 15 substantive terms as visual bar cards — a fast overview that is useful while you are writing and want a rough sense of which words are dominating your draft without interrupting your workflow.

This Word Frequency Counter provides the full analysis layer: a complete sortable, filterable table covering every word in your text regardless of how many there are, with exact occurrence counts, precise percentage figures relative to total word count, visual frequency bar charts for quick visual comparison, full CSV export in two formats, case sensitivity control, adjustable minimum word length, and four sort modes. It is the right tool for a thorough content audit, SEO keyword density review, competitive page analysis or research task where you need complete data rather than a quick snapshot. For real-time character limits, platform-specific length checks and reading time alongside your word data, open the Character Counter or Reading Time Calculator in a second tab.

Is this tool useful for academic writing and essay review?

Frequency analysis is one of the most practical self-editing techniques available to academic writers, and it is most useful in the late revision stage when the content is largely finalised. Paste your completed essay and sort by frequency descending to identify content words that appear too often and could be varied with synonyms or restructured sentences. Check that your central thesis terms — the specific concepts your argument depends on — appear with sufficient frequency relative to the total word count to signal their importance.

Look for high-frequency vague filler words such as "various", "significant", "important" and "clearly" that inflate length without contributing substantive meaning — these are prime candidates for removal or replacement with more specific language. After editing, confirm your final word count with our Word Counter, check spelling with the Spell Checker, and estimate how long your paper takes to read with the Reading Time Calculator before submission.

Can I use this for SEO content audits on competitor pages?

Yes — competitive frequency analysis is one of the primary professional use cases for this tool. Copy the visible body text from a competitor's top-ranking page, paste it here, and scan the frequency table to understand which terms they are using most prominently. Compare the density of their primary and secondary keywords against your own draft. Identify semantic terms and topic-adjacent vocabulary that they cover but your content is missing — these are the gaps that gap-filling content improvements address.

Export the results as CSV to include in a content brief alongside your own page's frequency data, making it easy to present a word-level comparison to a writing team or client. For a complete on-page SEO check, combine this tool with our Character Counter for meta description and title tag length, our Reading Time Calculator for content depth and engagement time signals, and our Text to Slug converter for clean URL structure recommendations.

How do I sort the results table?

There are two ways to change the sort order. The Sort dropdown in the filter toolbar above the textarea gives you four named options: Frequency descending (most common words first, the default), Frequency ascending (least common first — useful for finding rare or underused terms), A to Z alphabetical order, and Z to A reverse alphabetical. Select any option and the table rebuilds immediately.

You can also click the column headers in the results table directly. Clicking the "Word" header sorts alphabetically; clicking again reverses the direction. Clicking the "Count" header sorts by frequency; clicking again reverses to ascending order. The active sort column is highlighted in purple and an arrow indicator shows the current direction. Both methods are equivalent — use whichever feels faster for your workflow. The sort applies to the currently filtered set of results, so stop word filtering and minimum length remain active regardless of which sort is chosen.

Why does the "Showing" count differ from "Unique Words"?

"Unique Words" in the stats bar is the total count of distinct word tokens found across your entire text before any filters are applied. It is the raw vocabulary size of your document. "Showing" is how many of those unique words are currently visible in the results table after applying your chosen minimum word length, stop word filter and case sensitivity settings.

For example, a 500-word essay might contain 220 unique word tokens. With stop word filtering on and a minimum length of 3, only around 130–150 substantive terms might be shown, because the filtered settings hide grammatical function words and very short tokens. The difference between the two numbers tells you how much of the vocabulary is structural rather than topical. Adjust the filters in the toolbar to show more or fewer results — the "Showing" stat card updates instantly to reflect the current filtered count. The "Total Words" card always shows the unfiltered total regardless of filter settings.