Word Frequency Counter

Why count word frequencies

Word frequency is one of the simplest ways to explore text data. In qualitative research it helps you see which topics respondents mention most, spot unexpected terms, and decide where to look more closely. It is a common first step before coding interviews, focus groups or open-ended survey responses. Word frequencies are a common starting point for content analysis and text mining.

What the tool reports

• Total and unique words: the size and vocabulary of your text.
• Lexical diversity: unique words divided by total words. Lower values mean more repetition.
• Top terms: a ranked table with counts and percentages, which you can download as CSV for Excel or SPSS.
• Phrases: switch to two-word or three-word phrases to find expressions such as waiting time or health worker.

Tips for better results

Keep stop word removal on for single words, so that common words do not fill the table. For phrases, the tool skips combinations that start or end with a stop word. Combine similar forms yourself, for example by merging child and children, when you interpret the table.

Use in research

Researchers use frequency tables to describe the language of policy documents, compare how two groups talk about an issue, and create a codebook starting list. For a visual summary, send the same text to the word cloud generator.

Related analysis services

Frequency counts are the first step in content analysis and text mining. We can take them further with thematic analysis, text classification or topic modelling, and help with coding and recoding of open-ended responses. See all services or tell us about your project.