Basic COUNTIF

Beginner

COUNTIF is one of Excel's core counting tools. Use it whenever you need to count how many cells match one condition.

COUNTIF counts how many cells in a range meet one condition (also called a criterion).

You can use this pattern across many contexts, such as counting:

  • tickets marked "Open"
  • students in "Grade A"
  • products in "Electronics"

The basic pattern is:

=COUNTIF(range, condition)

What you need to do

In this sheet, you'll use an order dataset as the example:

  1. Look at the order list in rows 2–8. The Category values are in column C.
  2. Click cell D10.
  3. Use COUNTIF to count how many of those category cells are exactly Electronics.
  4. Press Enter.

When you’re done, cell D10 should show the number of Electronics entries.

Need some help?

Hint 1

COUNTIF is the right tool when you want to count how many cells match one condition (like a specific word).

Hint 2

Your criterion is text, so it needs double quotes in the formula (for example: "Electronics").

Hint 3

Your COUNTIF range should cover the Category cells in rows 2 through 8 (it will look like C2:C8 when written as a range).

Related function(s)