COUNT FUNCTION VS COUNTA FUNCTION IN EXCEL

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Both of the functions COUNT FUNCTION as well as COUNTA FUNCTION are very important function which gives us an immense power to solve complex problems in Excel to automate our sheets.

Both of these functions, as the name signifies are connected with the COUNTING in Excel.

But even then, there are differences in both of these functions.

Let us find out the different differences in Count and Counta function.



DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COUNT AND COUNTA FUNCTION

  1. COUNT FUNCTION counts the cells containing numbers in the given range whereas COUNTA FUNCTION counts all the cells containing any value [ text or number or other character ] in the given range.

For the example, let us take some random data which is a mix of blank cell, numbers and text.

Let us apply both the functions COUNT FUNCTION and COUNTA FUNCTION on this data, and check the results.

We apply both the function on the given data.

The COUNT FUNCTION returns the result as 5 and COUNTA FUNCTION returns the result as 19 which testifies our statement.

COUNT VS COUNTA RESULTS

2. COUNT FUNCTION can be used when we want to count the cells containing numbers only whereas COUNTA FUNCTION is used when we want to count the cells containing any kind of value.

3. COUNT FUNCTION ignores errors whereas COUNTA FUNCTION counts the cells containing errors.

4. COUNT FUNCTION and COUNTA FUNCTION, both ignores empty cells but COUNTA FUNCTION will count empty string. “”

This is the major difference between COUNT and COUNTA FUNCTION in EXCEL.