You can use the COUNTA() function in Excel to count non blank cells.

In other words, use COUNTA() to get the total used cells in a Range.

Earlier today I had a list of Pro’s and Con’s with an X in the respective column. To total the Pro’s and Con’s I simply counted the Non Blank cells for each Column, or the Cells with X’s in them.

Here’s an example formula using COUNTA(), the following returns the count of non blank cells in the Range A1:A10

=COUNTA(A1:A10)

Also note: Empty cells with a space character in them are considered non blank or used cells and create undesired results, possibly caused by the spacebar delete.

To count the blank cells in a range use the COUNTBLANK() function.