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How to count occurrences of a word in a cell in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationExcel & Google Sheets
=(LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(A2),LOWER(B2),"")))/LEN(B2)✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| Text | Word | Count |
| the cat sat on the mat | the | |
| apple banana apple | apple | |
| hello world | world | |
| one one one one | one |
=(LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(A2),LOWER(B2),"")))/LEN(B2)→2
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Step by step
- 1Put the text you want to search in column A (e.g., A2) and the word to count in column B (e.g., B2).
- 2Enter the formula =(LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(A2),LOWER(B2),"")))/LEN(B2) in an empty cell.
- 3LOWER() makes the search case-insensitive. Remove LOWER() if you need case-sensitive counting.
- 4The formula subtracts the length after removing the word from the original length, then divides by the word length to get the count.
- 5Press Enter. The result is the number of times the word appears in the cell.
Tips
- Wrap the result in INT() to avoid decimal artifacts from partial matches: =INT((LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(A2),LOWER(B2),"")))/LEN(B2)).
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Frequently asked
Does this count partial matches, like 'cat' inside 'catch'?
Yes. SUBSTITUTE replaces all occurrences including partial matches. To count whole-word matches only, pad the search word with spaces or use more advanced pattern matching.
How do I count occurrences across a whole range of cells?
Use COUNTIF for whole-cell matches, or sum the per-cell formula over a range: =SUMPRODUCT((LEN(A2:A6)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(LOWER(A2:A6),LOWER(B2),"")))/LEN(B2)).
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