COUNT and COUNTA Formula Generator

COUNT and COUNTA look interchangeable and are not. Pick a range, pick the function, and see in plain words what each one would count.

Your formula

Same formula with English function names

The difference, which is the whole question

  • COUNT counts numbers only. Text, TRUE/FALSE and empty cells are skipped. A column of order references stored as text counts as zero, which surprises people who expected the row count.
  • COUNTA counts anything that is not empty. Numbers, text, dates, errors, even a space someone typed by accident. It answers "how many cells have something in them".
  • A formula returning "" is not empty to COUNTA. A cell holding =IF(A1>0,"ok","") looks blank but contains a formula result, so COUNTA counts it. COUNTBLANK will not. This is the single most common reason the two disagree.
  • Neither one takes a condition. To count only what matches something, you want COUNTIF.
  • The separator and the name change with your Excel. COUNT is NB in French, CONTAR in Spanish and ANZAHL in German; COUNTA is NBVAL, CONTARA and ANZAHL2. Both versions are shown.

Counting the empty ones instead

Neither function does that. COUNTBLANK(range) counts empty cells, and it disagrees with "total rows minus COUNTA" exactly when a formula has returned an empty string.