Letter frequency in English
Across ordinary English prose the order runs E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R — with E at roughly 12% and the last few letters, J, Q, X and Z, together under 1%. That regularity is what makes substitution ciphers breakable: the most common symbol in the ciphertext is almost always E.
A short sample will not match those averages. Frequency analysis needs a few hundred letters before the ranking settles, which is why a single sentence can be misleading.
More free text tools
- Word counterLive word count with reading time, sentences and paragraphs.
- Character counterCharacters with and without spaces, against X, SMS and SEO limits.
- Text cleanerStrip extra spaces, blank lines and invisible characters in one pass.
- Remove line breaksRejoin text that a PDF or email broke into short lines.
- Text compareDiff two versions and see what was added, removed and left alone.
- Remove duplicate linesStrip repeated emails, URLs and names — or keep only the repeats.
Frequently asked questions
Is this letter counter free?
Yes, with no account.
What counts as a letter?
Letters only — digits, spaces and punctuation are excluded. Accented and non-Latin letters are included, because they are letters: é, ß, ж and 漢 all count.
How is this different from a character counter?
A character counter counts everything you typed, including spaces, digits and punctuation. This counts letters alone, which is what you want for a puzzle, a cryptogram or a letter-frequency analysis.
What is letter frequency used for?
Solving cryptograms and substitution ciphers, checking a Wordle or Scrabble guess, and identifying a language — the ranking of letters differs enough between languages to be a strong signal. In English prose, E is the most common letter at roughly 12%, followed by T and A.
Does it count repeated letters separately?
Yes. "letter" contributes two Ts and two Es to the totals. The frequency table shows each letter once with its total count and its share of all letters.