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Online Rosary Counter

Short answer

A rosary counter keeps your place in the Rosary prayer by prayer: the Creed, the Our Father, each of the ten Hail Marys in a decade, the Glory Be and the Hail, Holy Queen. This one also picks the day’s mysteries, by the 2002 schedule or the older one, and counts decades and Hail Marys.

Free, no sign-up, works offline, and nothing leaves this browser.

Opening · the crucifixToday’s mysteries follow the day of the weekApostles' CreedSign of the Cross, then “I believe in God…”
Hail Marys0 of 3
Decades0 of 5
Rosaries prayed
0
Decades today
0
Decades in all
0
Hail Marys
0
Last rosary
—
Average decade
—
Mysteries, schedule and prayers

Space, Enter or + moves on one prayer, so you can pray with your eyes closed; Ctrl+Z goes back one. Keys do nothing while a field has focus, and a held key moves on once. Changing a setting mid-rosary keeps your place.

Tap once per prayer, or press Space with your eyes closed. The screen shows the prayer, the decade and the mystery to announce, keeps your place if the phone locks, and starts again at the crucifix when the rosary is done.

The Rosary is a Catholic prayer of Hail Marys said in groups of ten, called decades, each begun with the Our Father, ended with the Glory Be and joined to a mystery, an event in the life of Jesus or Mary. The string of 59 beads used to count it is also called a rosary.

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Key facts

Online rosary counter at a glance
DetailAnswer
PriceFree, no sign-up, no ads
What one tap doesMoves on one prayer: Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Fatima Prayer, Hail, Holy Queen
MysteriesToday’s by the day of the week, or any set, or all 15 or 20 decades in order
Day scheduleSince 2002 (Luminous on Thursday) or before 2002; optional Advent and Lent Sundays
On screenThe prayer, its number, the decade and the mystery to announce
Prayers you can switch offThe opening prayers, the Fatima Prayer and the Hail, Holy Queen
TotalsRosaries prayed, decades today and in all, Hail Marys
TimeLast rosary and average decade, leaving out pauses over five minutes
KeyboardSpace, Enter or + moves on; Ctrl+Z goes back
Where your place is keptThis browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere

How to use the online rosary counter

Check the mysteries once, then tap a prayer at a time.

  1. Check the mysteries

    The board names today’s set. To pray another, or all 15 or 20 decades, open Mysteries, schedule and prayers and choose it.

  2. Match the prayers you say

    Keep or switch off the opening prayers, the Fatima Prayer after each Glory Be, and the Hail, Holy Queen at the end.

  3. Start at the crucifix

    Make the Sign of the Cross, pray the Creed, and tap Next prayer, or press Space, Enter or +.

  4. Tap after each prayer

    The board shows the next one: the Our Father with the mystery to announce, then Hail Mary 1 of 10 to 10 of 10, then the Glory Be.

  5. Go back after a slip

    Undo or Ctrl+Z steps back one prayer, as often as needed, and also brings back a reset made by mistake.

  6. Finish with the Hail, Holy Queen

    The last tap completes the rosary, adds it to the totals and returns to the crucifix for the next one.

Who uses a rosary counter

Anyone praying the Rosary who wants the place kept for them, with or without beads.

  • The daily rosary

    Five decades with the day’s mysteries chosen for you, and decades today counted.

  • Praying without beads

    Travelling, in hospital, or at a desk: the phone keeps the place a rosary would.

  • Leading a family or group rosary

    The mystery to announce and the Hail Mary number on one screen, for whoever leads.

  • Learning the order

    Each prayer named in turn, with its first words, so a newcomer never loses the thread.

  • The full rosary

    All twenty decades, or the older fifteen, in Gospel order, with the set and decade always shown.

  • Praying with eyes closed

    Space or Enter moves on from anywhere on the page, and vibration confirms each decade.

  • Interrupted prayer

    Your place is saved with every tap, so a phone call or a locked screen costs nothing.

  • Older and newer schedules

    Thursday’s Joyful mysteries and Saturday’s Glorious, for anyone keeping the pre-2002 plan.

Which mysteries today? Three schedules, and what the documents actually say

This counter keeps your place and shows a schedule. It does not teach the prayers, choose a devotion for anyone, or judge whether an indulgence was gained; what it can and cannot tell you about the five-decade rule is set out in full below. Any set of mysteries can be chosen on any day under Mysteries, schedule and prayers.

The rosary counters in the search results either let you pick a set of mysteries or print one table of days. None says that the table changed in 2002, that the Pope who changed it called it a suggestion, or that Sundays in Advent and Lent are where parish guides part company. The weekday plan comes from Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16 October 2002), section 38. It describes the custom then current, Monday and Thursday for the Joyful mysteries, Tuesday and Friday for the Sorrowful, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday for the Glorious, and proposes moving the second Joyful day to Saturday so that “Thursday would then be free for meditating on the ‘mysteries of light’”. It then adds: “This indication is not intended to limit a rightful freedom in personal and community prayer.”

Which mysteries on which day: the 2002 schedule, the one before it, and the seasonal Sunday custom (shown on the 2002 schedule; the counter can apply it to either)
DaySince 2002Before 2002With the Advent and Lent custom
MondayJoyfulJoyfulJoyful
TuesdaySorrowfulSorrowfulSorrowful
WednesdayGloriousGloriousGlorious
ThursdayLuminousJoyfulLuminous
FridaySorrowfulSorrowfulSorrowful
SaturdayJoyfulGloriousJoyful
SundayGloriousGloriousGlorious
Sundays of AdventGloriousGloriousJoyful
Sundays of LentGloriousGloriousSorrowful

Where the sources disagree: Sundays

The 2002 letter says nothing about Advent or Lent; its only season is the Lenten Way of the Cross, mentioned beside the Sorrowful mysteries. The custom of praying the Joyful mysteries on the Sundays of Advent and the Sorrowful on the Sundays of Lent is printed in many parish rosary guides, but not in any Church document this page could find. Answering a reader in 2009, Fr Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university, argued the other way: “The Lord’s Day always celebrates the Resurrection, even during Lent and Advent,” so Sunday’s “essentially paschal character should be reflected through the glorious mysteries”, with Palm Sunday a possible exception. The reader in the same column remembered the Sorrowful mysteries on the Sundays of Lent and Advent before 2002, which shows how far memories of the old custom differ.

The Vatican’s Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (December 2001), in its section on the Rosary, accepts that people who pray a third of the Rosary assign the mysteries to days, warns that a rigid plan can clash with the liturgy, as with the Sorrowful mysteries on a Christmas Day that falls on a Friday, and concludes that “the liturgical character of a given day takes precedence over the usual assignment of a mystery”. Its example is meditating on the arrival of the Magi on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, instead of the finding of Jesus in the Temple.

So the counter defaults to the 2002 schedule with Glorious Sundays, which is what the letter says, and offers the seasonal custom as an option rather than a rule. With the option on, these are the Sundays it changes:

Sundays the seasonal option changes, 2026 and 2027
SeasonSundaysMysteries with the option on
Advent 202629 November; 6, 13 and 20 DecemberJoyful
Lent 202714, 21 and 28 February; 7, 14 and 21 March (Palm Sunday)Sorrowful
Advent 202728 November; 5, 12 and 19 DecemberJoyful

The counter works these out itself: Lent’s six Sundays run from the First Sunday of Lent, 42 days before Easter, to Palm Sunday; Advent’s four end on the last Sunday before Christmas. Easter 2027 is on 28 March. Today’s uses the date on this device, and a rosary already begun keeps the date it was started on, so one begun just before midnight does not change its mysteries halfway through. A feast that overrides the plan, as the Directory describes, is left to you: choose the set by hand that day.

How many Hail Marys in a rosary: 50, 53, 153 or 203

“How many Hail Marys are in a rosary” has four honest answers, because “a rosary” means four different things: one set of five decades, the same with the opening prayers, the traditional fifteen, or all twenty since the Luminous mysteries were added in 2002. The 2002 letter itself says the beads “often become a simple counting mechanism to mark the succession of Hail Marys” (section 36), and the count depends on which of the four you mean:

Prayers in a rosary, by what is prayed (opening prayers said once, at the start)
What is prayedDecadesHail MarysOur FathersGlory BesTaps on this counter
One decade11011Not a setting
Five decades, no opening5505566
Five decades with the opening (the usual daily rosary)5536672
Fifteen decades (the traditional complete rosary)151531616202
Twenty decades (all four sets, since 2002)202032121267

The taps column counts every prayer the counter steps through with all its defaults on: the Creed, the Fatima Prayer after each Glory Be (one a decade), and the Hail, Holy Queen to close. Turn either off and the number falls by one a decade, or by one. The Hail Mary and decade totals under the counter only ever count prayers you moved past, so switching mid-rosary never rewrites what is already counted.

Why 150, and why the number changed

The fifteen-decade rosary followed the Psalms. Rosarium Virginis Mariae says the traditional mysteries were “determined by the origin of the prayer, which was based on the number 150, the number of the Psalms in the Psalter” (section 19), which is why a rosary of 150 Hail Marys was called Our Lady’s Psalter. Adding the five Luminous mysteries made the full rosary twenty decades, 200 Hail Marys in the mysteries, so a reference that says “a complete rosary” means 150 was written before 2002, or keeps the older count on purpose.

The 59 beads

A standard five-decade rosary has 59 beads: 53 small ones for the Hail Marys and 6 large ones for the Our Fathers. On the pendant, from the crucifix: one large bead, three small, one large. Then the loop, from the centre medal: ten small beads, a large bead, and so on, five decades separated by four large beads. The crucifix and the medal are not beads. The second large bead on the pendant carries the first decade’s Our Father, and the Glory Be has no bead of its own: it is said on the chain after each set of Hail Marys, as is the Fatima Prayer. A fifteen- or twenty-decade rosary goes round the same loop three or four times. The two dot rows under the counter mirror this: three Hail Mary beads during the opening, ten in a decade, and the five decades of the set in hand.

The twenty mysteries in order, with their Gospel passages

Each decade is joined to a mystery, an event to meditate on while the ten Hail Marys are prayed. Prayed all together they run in the order of the Gospel, Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, Glorious, which the 2002 letter says lets the Rosary become “more fully a ‘compendium of the Gospel’”. The counter names each one at its Our Father. The passages below are the ones usually read with each mystery; the Luminous wording follows section 21 of the letter.

The twenty mysteries of the Rosary in order, with the passage usually read with each
SetDecadeMysteryPassage
Joyful1The AnnunciationLuke 1:26–38
Joyful2The VisitationLuke 1:39–56
Joyful3The NativityLuke 2:1–20
Joyful4The Presentation in the TempleLuke 2:22–38
Joyful5The Finding in the TempleLuke 2:41–52
Luminous1The Baptism in the JordanMatthew 3:13–17
Luminous2The Wedding at CanaJohn 2:1–11
Luminous3The Proclamation of the Kingdom, with the call to conversionMark 1:14–15
Luminous4The TransfigurationLuke 9:28–36
Luminous5The Institution of the EucharistLuke 22:14–20
Sorrowful1The Agony in the GardenLuke 22:39–46
Sorrowful2The Scourging at the PillarJohn 19:1
Sorrowful3The Crowning with ThornsMatthew 27:27–31
Sorrowful4The Carrying of the CrossLuke 23:26–32
Sorrowful5The CrucifixionLuke 23:33–46
Glorious1The ResurrectionLuke 24:1–12
Glorious2The AscensionActs 1:6–11
Glorious3The Descent of the Holy SpiritActs 2:1–13
Glorious4The AssumptionNo Gospel account; defined as dogma by Pius XII in 1950
Glorious5The Coronation of MaryRevelation 12:1 is usually read with it

Choose All four sets to pray the twenty in this order in one go, or Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious for the fifteen of the older complete rosary. The opening prayers are said once at the start and the Hail, Holy Queen once at the end, and the counter tells you which set and decade you are in throughout.

The five-decade rule: what the counter can and cannot tell you

The counter records which button was pressed. Nothing on this page can tell you whether an indulgence was gained, and questions about one belong with a priest. What follows is what the rule says, so the count on the screen is not mistaken for more than it is.

The Church’s Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (the Handbook of Indulgences) grants a plenary indulgence for the Rosary recited in a church or oratory, or in a family, a religious community or a pious association, and a partial indulgence in other circumstances. As Catholic Answers quotes it, five decades are enough, but “these five decades must be recited without interruption”; “devout meditation on the mysteries is to be added to the vocal prayer”; and in public recitation “the mysteries must be announced in accord with approved local custom”. A plenary indulgence also needs the usual conditions, sacramental confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the Pope’s intentions and freedom from attachment to sin, and can be gained once a day.

What the five-decade rule asks, and what this counter can and cannot show
The rule asks forWhat the counter shows
Five decadesThe decades you moved past, in this rosary and in all
Without interruptionNothing. It times a rosary and leaves out pauses over five minutes, but whether a pause interrupted the prayer is not a question a timer can answer
Meditation on the mysteriesThe name of each mystery at its Our Father; the meditation is yours
The mysteries announced (in public)The name to announce, on the screen
A church, oratory, family, religious community or pious associationNothing. It does not know where you are or who is with you
Confession, Communion, prayer for the Pope’s intentionsNothing

The same goes for the prayers themselves. The counter shows the first words of each as a cue, not the full text, and its order (Creed, Our Father, three Hail Marys, Glory Be, then the decades, then the Hail, Holy Queen) is the common one in English-speaking parishes. Section 37 of the 2002 letter notes that some places open instead with Psalm 70, “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, and that the Rosary is often closed with a prayer for the Pope’s intentions. Section 35 says the Glory Be “is followed by a brief concluding prayer which varies according to local custom”, which is why the Fatima Prayer is a setting: it is the usual one in English, taught at Fatima in 1917, not a required part.

Sources: Rosarium Virginis Mariae, sections 19, 21, 35 to 38; Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, the Rosary, nos. 197 to 202; EWTN, Adapting the Mysteries of the Rosary (Fr Edward McNamara, Zenit, 22 December 2009); Catholic Answers, on the Rosary indulgence; Wikipedia, Fátima prayers. All read 2026-10-11.

Online counter vs a clicker, an app, paper and a spreadsheet

Every counting method trades something away. This is what each one actually costs you.

Online rosary counter compared with the alternatives
FeatureThis online counterHandheld clickerCounter phone appPen and paperSpreadsheet
CostFree$5–$15Free with ads, or paidCost of paperSubscription
Anything to installNoBuy the deviceApp store downloadNoYes, or a web login
Several counts at onceUnlimitedOne per deviceUsually limitedYes, messyYes
Fix a miscountUndo and redoStart overSometimesCross it outEdit the cell
Counts by more than oneAny step sizeOne at a timeSometimesManual mathsYes
Below zeroYesNoRarelyYesYes
Keeps the count if you close itSaves automaticallyUntil you reset the dialYesIf you keep the paperYes
Works with no signalYes, after first loadYesYesYesOften not
Keyboard and shortcutsFullNoneNoneNonePartial
Sends your data anywhereNeverNeverOften, for accounts and adsNeverYes, to the cloud

Other counter types

The same counter, set up and explained for a specific job. Your counters are shared across all of them.

Everyday6

The general-purpose counters: one number, many numbers, or counting on a timer.

Sport & scores30

Scoreboards that know the rules of their game, not just two numbers that go up.

Fitness & health6

Reps, laps, breaths and daily habits, where the count is part of the activity.

Work & field5

Counting that produces a record someone else relies on: stock, occupancy, lab work.

Faith3

Counts with their own rules about when a day turns over and what completes a set.

Frequently asked questions

How many Hail Marys are in a complete Rosary?

It depends what is meant. The usual daily rosary of five decades has 53: three in the opening and fifty in the decades. Without the opening it is 50. The traditional complete rosary of fifteen decades has 153, and all twenty decades since the Luminous mysteries were added in 2002 have 203, with the opening said once. The counter counts whichever you choose.

Which mysteries are prayed on Wednesday and Sunday?

The Glorious mysteries, on both days, in the 2002 schedule and in the one before it. Sunday is where customs differ: many parish guides give the Joyful mysteries on the Sundays of Advent and the Sorrowful on the Sundays of Lent, which the 2002 letter does not say. The counter uses Glorious and offers the seasonal custom as an option.

What day are the Luminous mysteries prayed?

Thursday. Pope John Paul II added the five Luminous mysteries in October 2002 and proposed moving the second weekly Joyful day from Thursday to Saturday, so that Thursday would be free for them. Before 2002, Thursday was Joyful and Saturday Glorious. Choose Before 2002 under Days of the week to keep that schedule.

Should we only say the sorrowful mysteries during Lent?

No rule says so. The weekday plan is a suggestion, which the 2002 letter says is not meant to limit a rightful freedom in prayer. Many keep the weekday sets through Lent, some pray the Sorrowful on Lent Sundays, and Fr Edward McNamara argued that Sundays keep the Glorious because every Sunday celebrates the Resurrection. To pray the Sorrowful any day, choose them under Mysteries.

How many beads are on a rosary?

A standard five-decade rosary has 59 beads: 53 small ones for the Hail Marys and 6 large ones for the Our Fathers. The pendant has one large bead, three small and one large; the loop has five decades of ten separated by four large beads. The crucifix and the centre medal are not counted, and the Glory Be is said on the chain.

Do you have to pray all 20 mysteries every day?

No. One set of five decades is the usual daily rosary. The Vatican’s Directory on Popular Piety speaks of those who recite a third of the Rosary assigning mysteries to particular days, and the indulgence rule asks for five decades. All four sets make twenty decades, roughly four times as long; the counter runs five, fifteen or twenty.

Is the Fatima prayer part of the Rosary?

It is a widespread custom, not a required part. The prayer, “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins…”, follows the Glory Be in each decade and comes from the Fatima apparitions of 1917. The 2002 letter says the Glory Be is followed by a brief prayer that varies according to local custom. The counter includes it by default; switch it off under After each Glory Be.

Can an online rosary counter gain an indulgence?

The counter has no bearing either way: the grant is for the prayer, not the device. A plenary indulgence asks for five decades without interruption, with meditation on the mysteries, in a church, family or religious community, plus confession, Communion and prayer for the Pope’s intentions. The counter only records what you pressed; ask a priest about the rest.

Is a rosary counter the same as a tasbeeh or mala counter?

The word is used for all three. A “digital rosary counter” sold as a finger ring is usually a tasbeeh counter for dhikr in sets of 33 and 100, and a Tibetan “rosary counter” is the pair of dorje and bell strings on a mala. This page is for the Catholic Rosary; this site’s tasbeeh and mala counters handle the other two.

Does it keep my place if I close the page?

Yes. There is no account and no server: your place, the settings and the totals are saved in this browser with every tap, so a locked phone or a closed tab costs nothing, and a rosary already begun keeps the mysteries of the day it started. Clearing site data or switching devices starts it afresh.

Counting guides

Longer answers to the questions behind the counting.

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