Table of Contents
SUBTOTAL is a function in Google Sheets that calculates a subtotal of a range of data based on a specified function, such as COUNTIF. This allows users to count the number of cells in a range that meet a certain criteria, while also ignoring any other subtotals in the range. This is useful for organizing and analyzing large data sets, as it allows for a more specific count of certain data points without being affected by other subtotals.
Often you may want to use the SUBTOTAL function with the COUNTIF function in Google Sheets to count only the visible rows that meet some criteria.
Fortunately this is easy to do by using a helper column.
The following step-by-step example shows how to do so in practice.
Step 1: Enter the Data
First, let’s enter the following dataset that contains information about various basketball players:
Step 2: Add Helper Column
Next, type the following formula into cell D2:
=SUBTOTAL(103, C2)
Then click and drag this formula down to each remaining cell in column D:
Step 3: Filter the Data
To add a filter to this data, we can highlight cells A1:D11, then click the Data tab, then click Create a filter.
Then click the filter icon next to the Conference column and filter the data to only show rows where the value in the Conference column is equal to West:
Step 4: Use Subtotal with COUNTIF
Now suppose that we would like to count the number of values in the Position column that are equal to Guard.
=COUNTIFS(B2:B9,"Guard",D2:D9,"1")
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The formula correctly returns a count of 2.
By looking at the filtered data, we can verify that there are indeed 2 rows in the Position column with a value of Guard.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets: