Excel COUNT Function

The Excel COUNT function returns the count of values that are numbers, generally cells that contain numbers. Values can be supplied as constants, cell references, or ranges.
- value1 - An item, cell reference, or range.
- value2 - [optional] An item, cell reference, or range.
The COUNT function returns the count of numeric values in the list of supplied arguments. Arguments can be individual items, cell references, or ranges up to a total of 255 arguments. All numbers including negative values, percentages, dates, fractions, and time are counted. Empty cells and text values are ignored.
Example #1 - range
In the example shown, COUNT is set up to count numbers in the range B5:B11:
=COUNT(B5:B11) // returns 4
COUNT returns 4, since there are 4 numeric values in the range B5:B11. Text values and blank cells are ignored.
Example #2 - constants
The example below shows COUNT with 3 hardcoded values. Two of the values are numbers, one is text, so COUNT returns 2:
=COUNT(1,2,"apple") // returns 2
Functions for counting
- To count numbers only, use the COUNT function.
- To count numbers and text, use the COUNTA function.
- To count based one one criteria, use the COUNTIF function
- To count based one multiple criteria, use the COUNTIFS function.
- To count empty cells, use the COUNTBLANK function.
Notes
- COUNT can handle up to 255 arguments.
- COUNT ignores the logical values TRUE and FALSE.
- COUNT ignores text values and empty cells.
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