Letter Frequency Counter
A–Z frequency table for any text.
- Reading time:
- 2 min
- Last updated:
- Price:
- Free, no signup
Type or paste text to see the result.
What the Letter Frequency Counter does
Analyze the exact distribution and percentage frequency of every letter in your text. From A to Z, discover how often individual characters appear in your writing or cipher puzzles.
View ranked frequency tables and percentage breakdowns, essential for cryptanalysis, typography kerning audits, and linguistic research.
Why the Letter Frequency Counter is useful
Letter frequency analysis is the cornerstone of classical cryptography, aiding in the deciphering of substitution ciphers and frequency analysis puzzles.
Designers building custom fonts and UI layouts need real character frequency metrics to allocate proportional kerning and keyboard layouts.
Also known as: letter frequency counter, a-z frequency, cipher letter frequency, free letter frequency counter, online letter frequency counter, letter frequency counter online free, letter frequency counter tool.
How to use the Letter Frequency Counter
- 1
Paste passage
Insert any text, speech, encrypted cipher, or code snippet.
- 2
View letter breakdown
Review the sorted table showing raw counts and percentage of total letter volume.
- 3
Export frequency data
Copy the statistics table for linguistic modeling, cryptographic decryption, or academic analysis.
Key features
- Case-insensitive alphabetical letter counting (A through Z)
- Percentage calculations calibrated against total alphabetic characters
- Sorted from most frequent to least frequent letters automatically
- Excludes numbers, whitespace, and punctuation for pure phonetic statistics
Benefits
- Decipher substitution ciphers by comparing against standard English frequency
- Audit writing habits and check for phonetic repetition or stylistic anomalies
- Provides hard data for keyboard layout optimization and game design (Scrabble, Wordle)
Real-life use cases
Solving cryptograms
A puzzle enthusiast checks letter frequencies in an encrypted message to identify vowels corresponding to E, T, and A.
Constrained writing challenges
An author writing a lipogram (prose omitting the letter E) verifies that zero instances of E exist in their chapter.
Typographic font design
A type designer reviews letter counts in target languages to prioritize glyph kerning pairs.
Tips for the best results
- In standard English prose, 'E', 'T', 'A', 'O', 'I', and 'N' typically top the frequency rankings.
- If solving a substitution cipher, match your highest-frequency letters against the standard English frequency curve.
- Toggle between case-sensitive and case-insensitive counting depending on your research needs.
Conclusion
Uncover the hidden alphabetical profile of your text with instant letter frequency analysis.
Frequently asked questions
Does it count punctuation and symbols?
- By default, this tool focuses exclusively on alphabetic letters, ignoring punctuation and spaces.
Does it distinguish between uppercase and lowercase?
- Letters are combined case-insensitively by default, but case-sensitive mode can be toggled.
How are percentages calculated?
- Percentages reflect each letter's count divided by the total sum of all alphabetic characters.
Does it support accented letters like é or ü?
- You can choose whether accented characters fold into base letters or count as distinct glyphs.
Is there a limit on text length?
- No, you can paste full novels and receive an instant frequency breakdown.
Is the text sent to any analytics server?
- No, calculations run 100% locally on your computer.
Related tools you may need
- Character Frequency Analyzer — See how often every character appears.
- Vowel Counter — Count vowels and their breakdown.
- Character Counter — Count characters with and without spaces — great for tweets and metas.
- Word Frequency Counter — See which words appear most often in your text.
- Caesar Cipher — Encrypt or decrypt text with the classic Caesar shift (13).
- ROT13 Encoder — Apply the classic ROT13 letter rotation.
- Consonant Counter — Count consonants and the consonant ratio.
- Syllable Counter — Estimate the total syllables in your text.
Keep exploring
Browse the full tools directory, filter by category, or read guides on the Text Tools Hub blog.