Other Excel tutorials and resources Overall, the COUNTIF () function is fairly simple to use — it’s the condition expressed in criteria that might cause confusion.

The COUNTIFS function will search through cell locations in multiple ranges and return a count of "1" for every time all the ranges meet your criteria in the same cell location.

Thankfully, Microsoft Excel's COUNTIF formula swoops in to save the day. It lets you count cells based on specific text or conditions, turning your spreadsheet chaos into organized data magic.

Excel's COUNTIFS() function is flexible enough to handle different ranges and data types.