Sum if cells contain specific text in another column

This tutorial will show you how to sum values if cells contain specific or partial text in another column. Take the below data range as an example, to get the total amounts of the products containing the text “T-Shirt”, both the SUMIF function and SUMPRODUCT function can deal with this task in Excel.

• Sum values if cell contains specific or partial text with SUMIF function
• Sum values if cell contains specific or partial text with SUMPRODUCT function

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Sum values if cell contains specific or partial text with SUMIF function

To sum values if a cell contains specific text in another column, you can use the SUMIF function with a wildcard (*), the generic syntaxes are:

Generic formula with hardcoded text:

• range: The data range you want to evaluate using the criteria;
• *text*: The criteria you want to sum values based on. Here, the * wildcard is used to find any number of characters, to match all items that contain a specific text, put the text between the two * characters. (Note that you must enclose the text and wildcard in double quotes.)
• sum_range: The range of cells with matched numeric values that you want to sum.

Generic formula with cell reference:

• range: The data range you want to evaluate using the criteria;
• "*"&cell&"*": The criteria you want to sum values based on;
  • *: The wildcard which finds any number of characters.
  • cell: The cell contains the specific text to look for.
  • &: This concatenation operator (&) is used to join a cell reference with the asterisks.
• sum_range: The range of cells with matched numeric values that you want to sum.

After knowing the basic operation of the function, please use any one of the following formulas you need, and then press Enter key to get the result:

Note: This SUMIF function is not case-sensitive.

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Sum values if cell contains specific or partial text with SUMPRODUCT function

The SUMPRODUCT function also can help you to finish this job without using any wildcard. Here, you should wrap the ISNUMBER and SEARCH functions inside a SUMPRODUCT function, the generic syntax is:

• sum_range: The range of cells with matched numeric values that you want to sum;
• criteria: The criteria you want to sum values based on. It can be a cell reference or specific text you defined;
• range: The data range you want to evaluate using the criteria;

Please use any one of the below formulas into a blank cell, and press Enter key to return the result:

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Explanation of this formula:

=SUMPRODUCT($B$2:$B$12*(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("T-Shirt",$A$2:$A$12))))

• SEARCH("T-Shirt",$A$2:$A$12): The SEARCH function returns the location of the specific text “T-Shirt” from the data range A2:A12, so, you will get an array like this: {5;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;7;#VALUE!;7;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;7}.
• ISNUMBER(SEARCH("T-Shirt",$A$2:$A$12))= ISNUMBER({5;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;7;#VALUE!;7;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;#VALUE!;7}): This ISNUMBER function is used to test for the numeric values, and returns a new array: {TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE}.
• $B$2:$B$12*(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("T-Shirt",$A$2:$A$12)))= {347;428;398;430;228;379;412;461;316;420;449}*{TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE;TRUE}: To multiply these two arrays, the math operation forces the TRUE and FALSE values to 1s and 0s. So, the multiplication of the two arrays will be like this: {347;428;398;430;228;379;412;461;316;420;449}*{1;0;0;1;0;1;0;0;0;0;1}={347;0;0;430;0;379;0;0;0;0;449}.
• SUMPRODUCT($B$2:$B$12*(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("T-Shirt",$A$2:$A$12)))) =SUMPRODUCT({347;0;0;430;0;379;0;0;0;0;449}):Finally, the SUMPRODUCT function sums all values in the array to get the result:1605.

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Relative function used:

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