Excel’s COUNTIF Function Explained with Real Examples (Step-by-Step Guide)

Excel’s COUNTIF Function Explained with Real Examples (Step-by-Step Guide)

The COUNTIF() function in Excel helps you count the number of cells that meet a specific condition. It’s simple but powerful for summarizing data quickly.

📘 Syntax:

=COUNTIF(range, criteria)

✅ Example 1 – Count Passed Students:

=COUNTIF(C2:C20, "Pass")

This counts how many students in C2:C20 have the result marked as "Pass".

✅ Example 2 – Count Specific Product Sales:

=COUNTIF(A2:A100, "Apple")

Counts how many times "Apple" appears in product list A2:A100.

🎯 Common Use Cases:

• Count how many employees are in HR department
• Count how many orders were placed in "January"
• Track how many entries are marked as "Incomplete"

💡 Tips for Using COUNTIF:

Use wildcards like "*Pen" to match words ending in "Pen", or "*a*" to count cells that contain the letter "a".

📊 Why It’s Useful:

COUNTIF is a building block for dashboards, summaries, and reports. It works well with conditional formatting too.

Practice COUNTIF daily with ScriptDataInsights to become fluent in Excel’s core functions!