COUNTIF vs COUNTIFS: one letter, one big difference
COUNTIFS is COUNTIF's multi-condition sibling — and unlike the SUMIF/SUMIFS pair, the argument order doesn't flip, so the safest habit is simply: always use COUNTIFS.
The differences at a glance
| COUNTIF | COUNTIFS | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of conditions | Exactly one | One or many (all ANDed) |
| Argument pattern | range, criteria | range1, criteria1, range2, criteria2, ... |
| Wildcards and comparisons | Yes ("Widg*", ">100") | Yes, per condition |
| OR counting | Add COUNTIFs (beware overlap) | Same — COUNTIFS is AND-only; use SUMPRODUCT for true OR |
| Compatibility | Universal | Universal (Excel 2007+, every Sheets & LibreOffice version we test) |
Which should you use?
- COUNTIF — Legacy sheets that already use it — there's no functional advantage over a one-pair COUNTIFS.
- COUNTIFS — Everything new. Same syntax for one condition or five, no relearning when requirements grow.
Compatibility (from executed tests)
Both execute correctly in every version of all three apps we test. One shared quirk to know: criteria ranges must be the same size, and text criteria over ~255 characters fail in Excel — neither limit differs between the two functions.
Example formulas
| COUNTIF | =COUNTIF(A2:A100,"East") |
| COUNTIFS (two conditions) | =COUNTIFS(A2:A100,"East",B2:B100,">100") |
Full per-version details on each function page: COUNTIF · COUNTIFS.