Phrase Frequency Counter
Find the phrases you repeat. The phrase frequency counter lists every group of 2 to 5 words that appears more than once in your text, most repeated first, with its count and density. It’s an n-gram counter for writers, SEO and research that never runs a phrase across a full stop or comma.
- 2- to 5-word phrases
- Hides overlapping phrases
- Stays on your device
Phrase frequency list
Repeated groups of words, most used first. Phrases never run across a full stop, comma or line break.
| Phrase | Words | Count | Density |
|---|
Repeated phrases appear here. Paste a longer text if nothing shows.
How to find repeated phrases in text
Finding repeated phrases with the phrase frequency counter takes three steps.
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Paste your text
A blog post, a speech, a set of product descriptions or a long report. Repeated phrases appear in the list as you type.
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Pick a phrase length
Look for 2 to 5 words at once, or a single length such as three-word phrases. Choose whether to show phrases used 2, 3 or 5 times or more.
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Review the list
Phrases are ranked by count with their density. Copy the list or download a CSV to sort and filter it in a spreadsheet.
In the sample text, “our customer support team” appears twice and “customer support team” three times. “Customer support” on its own is hidden because it only ever appears inside “customer support team”.
What are n-grams?
An n-gram is a run of n words in a row. The phrase frequency counter counts n-grams from 2 to 5 words long.
| Name | Words | Example from “the quick brown fox jumps” |
|---|---|---|
| Unigram | 1 | quick (use the Word Frequency Counter for single words) |
| Bigram | 2 | quick brown, brown fox |
| Trigram | 3 | the quick brown, brown fox jumps |
| 4-gram | 4 | the quick brown fox |
| 5-gram | 5 | the quick brown fox jumps |
Each word starts a new phrase, so phrases overlap: a 5-word sentence contains four bigrams and three trigrams.
How the phrase frequency counter decides what a phrase is
A phrase is only counted when its words sit next to each other in the same part of a sentence. The counter breaks your text at full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, semicolons, colons, brackets, quotation marks, dashes and line breaks, so “red, apple” is never treated as the phrase “red apple”.
Three options keep the list useful:
- Skip phrases of only common words. Phrases like “of the”, “in a” and “it is” repeat in every text, so they’re left out. A phrase that contains a common word, such as “the help centre”, is still counted.
- Hide shorter phrases inside longer ones. If “customer support” appears 3 times and every one of those is part of “customer support team”, only the longer phrase is shown. If the shorter phrase also appears on its own, it stays in the list.
- Match case. Off by default, so “Help Centre” and “help centre” are counted together.
Phrase frequency vs word frequency
Single words and phrases tell you different things about a text.
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1
Word frequency
Shows which individual words you use most. Good for spotting overused words and the main topic.
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2+
Phrase frequency
Shows which word combinations you repeat: set phrases, slogans, keyword phrases and verbal habits.
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%
Phrase density
The share of all words a phrase covers. A 3-word phrase used 4 times covers 12 words.
Who uses a phrase frequency counter
Repeated phrases are easy to miss when you read your own writing, and easy to spot in a list.
| Who | What they find |
|---|---|
| SEO writers | Which multi-word keyword phrases a page actually uses, and how often, without stuffing them in. |
| Speech and script writers | Phrases a speaker repeats so often they become a verbal tic, or a slogan worth repeating on purpose. |
| Students | Stock phrases such as “in order to” or “it is important to” that make an essay feel repetitive. |
| Marketers | Phrases repeated across product descriptions or ads that should be varied. |
| Researchers | Recurring expressions in interviews, open survey answers and transcripts. |
| Translators | Repeated segments that should be translated the same way every time. |
How to cut repeated phrases
Once you’ve found a phrase you repeat too often:
- Use a pronoun or a shorter form after the first mention: “the customer support team” → “the team” or “they”.
- Combine sentences that repeat the same subject.
- Vary filler phrases: “in order to” is usually just “to”, and “at this point in time” is “now”.
- Keep the phrases that matter. A product name or a key term is fine to repeat; consistency helps the reader.
Then paste the text again to check the counts went down. To check a single phrase, type it into the Specific Word Counter, which highlights every place it appears.
Phrase frequency counter FAQ
What is a phrase frequency counter?
A tool that counts how often each group of words appears in a text. This one lists repeated phrases of 2 to 5 words, also called n-grams, with their counts and density.
Why is a phrase I repeated missing from the list?
Either punctuation splits it (phrases never run across a comma or full stop), it’s made only of common words like “of the”, or it’s hidden because it only appears inside a longer repeated phrase. Untick “Hide shorter phrases” to see every length.
How is phrase density calculated?
The number of words the phrase covers, divided by the total words, times 100. A two-word phrase used 5 times in a 500-word text has a density of 2%.
Can I find phrases used only once?
Yes. Set “Show phrases used” to “Any number of times”. On a long text this list gets very long, so download the CSV to sort it.
Does it count phrases across line breaks?
No. A line break ends a phrase, so the last word of one line and the first word of the next are never joined.
Can I count one specific phrase?
Yes. Type it into the Specific Word Counter to count it and see every place it appears.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Phrases are counted in your browser, and the text never leaves your device.
Sources and references
- n-gram, Wikipedia
- Spam policies for Google web search, Google Search Central
More text analysis tools
- Frequency Word Frequency Counter Rank every word by how often it appears, with counts and density. Open tool
- Find Specific Word Counter Count how many times a word or phrase appears, with every match highlighted. Open tool
- Repeats Duplicate Word Finder Find doubled words like “the the” and words repeated too close together. Open tool
- Unique Unique Word Counter Count distinct words, list each one once and get the type–token ratio. Open tool