How the counting works

The number is not a measurement of anything. It’s a joke with a calculator attached. Our Terms say so too, in lawyer voice.

Step 1: A quick 18+ check

The quiz lives at /quiz, behind a short age check. You tap "I'm 18+ — enter" or "I'm under 18 — leave." It's a self-confirmation, not an ID check. If you confirm, a small first-party cookie remembers it for about 30 days so we don't ask on every visit. Everything else on the site, including this page and the FAQ, can be read without the check.

Why 18+ at all? The questions are about adult life, even though the language stays soft. More on that in the FAQ.

Step 2: A few light questions

The quiz has three to five questions, depending on your answers. They're a few light questions about your habits and history, and everything comes back in euphemisms:

• Two history questions. Rough lifetime counts of the people you've been with, in two groups. Each person counts once. Same person twice is still one.
• One habits question. How often, picked from a list that runs from "Never" to "Multiple times a day."
• Two follow-ups, only if you didn't pick "Never." Roughly how many years, and a few broad categories that set a small multiplier (you can pick several).

If you pick "Never" on the habits question, the quiz skips the follow-ups and you're done after three questions. Rough guesses are completely fine. Nobody is checking your math, least of all us.

The actual question wording stays on the quiz itself, behind the age check, so this page stays friendly for anyone who wanders in.

Step 3: The irresponsible math

The calculator builds two piles and then adds them together.

Pile one: history. Your two history answers go straight in, one for each of the two euphemism counts. No multiplier. Unique people only.

Pile two: habits. This is where the number gets gloriously inflated. Your how-often answer becomes an estimated number of times per year:

That yearly number is multiplied by your years. Then it's multiplied again by a small ballpark average for the categories you picked. Pick several and the calculator averages them. Pick none and it uses a default of one for each count.

The total. The two piles are added, each euphemism count is rounded to a whole number, and the two counts are added together for your bits total. That’s your count. (It also picks the little label on your card.)

A quick example, using the sample card on our home page: 437 roses plus 305 eggplants is 742 bits. Small habits times many years add up fast. That’s the whole trick.

No statistician would sign off on any of this, which is the point. Your results page has a “How we (very unscientifically) got this” section that shows both piles.

Step 4: A little label and a nice line

Every count also gets a small label (like Sweet spot or Legendary) and one of five nice lines for its range. The line is picked at random once, so your results page, your image and your share link all match. The labels are made-up groupings, not ranks. A low number isn’t “innocent” and a high one isn’t “wild.” All the labels are here if you’re curious.

Why roses, kitties and eggplants?

The results are drawn as euphemisms. One count is shown as a flower or a cat (a rose, a tulip, a sunflower, a grinning cat and so on). The other is shown as an eggplant or one of its friends, mostly from the produce aisle. Each result picks one of each at random, which is why your symbols can change when you retake the quiz.

We use euphemisms for three reasons:

1. It's funnier. "742 bits, illustrated as a bouquet and an eggplant" is a better punchline than anything literal.
2. It keeps things soft-PG. Nothing on the site shows or names anatomy. The jokes are for grown-ups; the pictures are fit for a garden show.
3. It makes sharing easier. A card full of roses and eggplants can sit in a group chat without making anyone wince.

What's stored, and what isn't

This section describes how the site actually behaves, and matches our Privacy Policy.

Not stored:

• Your individual answers. They're sent to our server to calculate the result, used in the moment, and not saved. Our hosting provider may process the request briefly as normal web traffic. Answers are never sent to analytics.
• Your identity. There are no accounts. We never ask for your name or email.

Stored on your device:

• A small cookie that remembers your 18+ confirmation for about 30 days. Clear your cookies and it's gone.

Stored only if you tap a share or invite button:

• Your scorecard image and a short summary: the two estimated counts, the names of the euphemisms you got, the total, and which saying you saw. This is what makes a share link like countmybits.com/r/… work. Anyone who has that link can open it. Share pages are marked so search engines don't list them. Your individual answers are not part of what's stored.
• Shared scorecards are automatically deleted 90 days after they're created. You can also email the link to [email protected] to have one removed on request.
• Tapping Download makes the image on your device and doesn't upload anything.

Analytics: we use Google Analytics to count things like quiz starts, quiz completions, which broad range a result lands in (for example "51–500"), and whether people download or share. It never receives your answers, name, email or share-link IDs. For visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, analytics cookies are off by default. Details and opt-outs are in the Privacy Policy.

Ads: No ads run right now; if ads return, they appear only on written pages, never on the quiz, results or scorecards.

Ready? Count my bits (18+).