As a motion designer, there is one thing I am always looking for on the web: an After Effects counter or countdown. Whether is to show a number of likes, counting down until a launch or specific time, or an infographic, counters are very popular. I can never seem to remember the exact codes by heart, so I always have to go look through my past projects or on the web and find After Effects expression.

So instead of wasting time watching YouTube tutorials and going to multiple websites to find different After Effects counter expressions, I have decided to create my own counter resource where anyone can grab the free After Effects counter templates they need and use them. This hopefully will help you and I have more time available to design great counters rather than looking everywhere for After Effects script expressions 🙂 Don’t forget to share the page if you liked it and want more articles like this in future.

Here we go below are super simple After Effects counters templates with no design.

After Effects Numbers Preset Effect

Let’s start by the easiest counting option. On the Effects & Presets windows, type “Numbers”

and drag it to your text layer or solid. Then you have multiple type of counters such as:

Number

Timecode

Time

Numerical Date

Short Date

Long Date

Hexadecimal

Download the example numbers presets above here

Simple After Effects Counter

Here is an easy and straight-forward counter with animated numbers counting up, one expression only

with different options such as:

Number and Decimals

Add comma

Add dollar sign

begin count number

end count number

Duration

Download the above After effects counter here

After Effects Counter with comma or period.

Here are 2 counter examples with number counting up with comma or dot/period. The counter is connected to the slider control effect. It can be adjusted easily- no need to edit the expression.

Download the After Effect Counter with comma and dot here

After Effects counter with word at the end

With all the social media and infographics popularity, this “like” counter is probably the most useful with numbers counting up with the word “like”. You can change the word “like” to virtually anything you want on the expression. This counter also has a slider control.

Download the After Effects Like counter template here

After Effects counter from 0 to 1k

Now you noticed on social media how they abbreviate the numbers so instead of showing 1000 Likes they show 1K Like, below and example if you want to convert 1000 to 1k, also the after effects source file provided after the demo. Many thanks to Ukramedia for providing the expression.

Download the 0 to 1K after effects project here

After Effects Stopwatch counter

Self explanatory here is an after effects stopwatch template counting up or down with an after effects expression, many thanks to motionscript for the codes.

Download both After effects Stopwatch template here

After Effects Countdown

Super simple countdown here very easy to use for your next presentation launch!

Download the After Effects Countdown template here

After Effect Odometer Counter

Here is an simple odometer with slider control effect and an after effects expression



Download the after effect odometer template here

If I missed something or you’d would like to see a specific After Effects counter, feel free to suggest it in the comment area below. I’ll try my best to add it. Thanks!!

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