About the Letter Frequency Counter
Letter frequency analysis counts how often each letter appears in a piece of text. It is the classic first step when breaking a simple substitution cipher, and it is also handy for word games, language learning, typography and checking whether a sentence uses every letter of the alphabet. Paste your text and this counter lists every letter A to Z that appears, sorted from most to least common, with the count, the percentage of all letters and a bar chart. It also reports how many different letters there are, which letters are missing and whether the text is a pangram.
Updated October 2026
How to use the Letter Frequency Counter
- 1Type or paste your text into the box.
- 2Optionally tick the box to count capital and small letters separately.
- 3Read the summary: total letters, different letters, most common letter and digit and space counts.
- 4Scan the bar chart to see the most and least common letters.
- 5Press Copy table to paste the counts into a spreadsheet.
Using frequency analysis on a cipher
To attack a simple substitution cipher, count the letters in the coded message. Match the most common cipher letter to E, the next to T, and so on, then look for short words such as THE and AND to confirm or correct your guesses. Repeat with common pairs such as TH, HE and IN. It is slow by hand, which is why a counter that sorts the letters for you saves time on puzzles, escape rooms and geocaching clues.
Other uses
- Check word-game words and decide which letters are scarce.
- Study how different languages use letters.
- Choose a font or keyboard layout for typing tests.
- Design crossword and word-search puzzles.
- Test whether a slogan or sentence is a pangram.
Related text tools
For counting words rather than letters, use the Word Frequency Counter or the Word Counter. The Character Counter gives totals with and without spaces, the Case Converter changes capital letters, the Rot13 and Caesar Cipher tool encodes and decodes simple ciphers, and the Morse Code Translator converts text to dots and dashes. All run in your browser and none of your text is sent anywhere.
Features
- Counts for each letter A to Z, sorted by frequency
- Percentage of all letters
- Bar chart for quick comparison
- Missing letters and pangram detection
- Accented letters folded into plain letters
- Optional case-sensitive counting
- Copy as a table for spreadsheets
Frequently asked questions
What is letter frequency analysis?
It is counting how often each letter appears in a text and comparing the pattern with what is typical for a language. In English the letter E is the most common, followed by T, A, O, I, N, S, H and R. Because a simple substitution cipher replaces each letter with another but keeps the counts, the most common cipher letter often stands for E.
What are the most common letters in English?
In ordinary English text the most frequent letters are E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H and R, in roughly that order. E makes up about 12 percent of letters. Q, X, J and Z are the rarest. A short text will differ from these averages, and other languages have very different patterns.
What is a pangram?
A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. The best-known English example is The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The counter tells you whether your text is a pangram and lists the letters it lacks.
Are accents, digits and punctuation counted?
Accented letters are folded to their plain forms, so é counts as e. Digits, spaces and other symbols are not counted as letters, but their totals are reported separately in the summary. Letters outside A to Z, such as Cyrillic or Greek, are not counted here.
How much text do I need for good results?
More text gives more reliable percentages. For breaking a cipher, a few hundred letters is usually enough to show a pattern, while a single sentence can be misleading. For simple counting there is no minimum.
Is my text uploaded?
No. The counting happens in your browser, and the text never leaves your device.