What function should be used to count the number of items in a list that meet one and only one specific criteria?

Returns a conditional count across a range.

COUNTIF Function

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Sample Usage

COUNTIF(A1:A10,">20")

COUNTIF(A1:A10,"Paid")

Syntax

COUNTIF(range, criterion)

• range - The range that is tested against criterion.

• criterion - The pattern or test to apply to range.

  • If range contains text to check against, criterion must be a string. criterion can contain wildcards including ? to match any single character or * to match zero or more contiguous characters. To match an actual question mark or asterisk, prefix the character with the tilde (~) character (i.e. ~? and ~*). A string criterion must be enclosed in quotation marks. Each cell in range is then checked against criterion for equality (or match, if wildcards are used).

  • If range contains numbers to check against, criterion may be either a string or a number. If a number is provided, each cell in range is checked for equality with criterion. Otherwise, criterion may be a string containing a number (which also checks for equality), or a number prefixed with any of the following operators: =, >, >=, <, or <=, which check whether the range cell is equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, or less than or equal to the criterion value, respectively.

Notes

• COUNTIF can only perform conditional counts with a single criterion. To use multiple criteria, use COUNTIFS or the database functions DCOUNT or DCOUNTA.

• COUNTIF is not case sensitive.

Examples

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See Also

COUNTIFS: Returns the count of a range depending on multiple criteria.

SUMIF: Returns a conditional sum across a range.

DCOUNTA: Counts values, including text, selected from a database table-like array or range using a SQL-like query.

DCOUNT: Counts numeric values selected from a database table-like array or range using a SQL-like query.

COUNTUNIQUE: Counts the number of unique values in a list of specified values and ranges.

COUNTA: Returns the number of values in a dataset.

COUNTBLANK: Returns the number of empty cells in a given range.

COUNT: Returns the number of numeric values in a dataset.

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Counts the number of cells within a range that meet a criterion.

Sample Usage

COUNTIF(Quantity:Quantity, >25)

Syntax

COUNTIF(

• range

• criterion

• range

  —

  The group of cells to count.

• criterion

  —

  The value that determines which cells in the range will be counted; for example: 15, "Hello World!", or >25.

Usage Notes

• For criterion, acceptable operators include: = (equal to), <> (not equal to), > (greater than), < (less than), >= (greater than or equal to), <= (less than or equal to).
• Blank cells aren't counted when using <> (not equal to). For example, the formula =COUNTIF(Item:Item, <> "Shirt") won't count any blank cells that exist in the Item column.

Examples

This example references the following sheet information:

Given the table above, here are some examples of using COUNTIF in a sheet:

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