Build it here, copy one line, and paste it into your website, blog, intranet, wiki or email signature. It counts down in each visitor’s own time zone, and it keeps itself right forever — you never touch it again.
Free, no account, and there is a version that needs no JavaScript at all. It works in WordPress, Notion, Confluence, SharePoint and Teams, Squarespace, Wix, Ghost, forums, email signatures and plain HTML.
1 · What are you counting to?
Leave blank and it writes the date itself. Letters, numbers and simple punctuation, up to 48 characters.
Off — counts to midnight in each visitor’s own time zone, which is what you want for a date. On — one fixed instant worldwide, which is what you want for an event.
2 · What should it show?
3 · How should it look?
Match your own brand in ten seconds — the thing people on an intranet always ask for.
4 · Size
Anything between 120 and 2000px. The layout re-flows itself — wide sizes go horizontal, tall sizes stack — and the number auto-fits so it never clips.
Which one should I use?
Script looks best. It renders inside your own page, can inherit your typeface, resizes with whatever container you put it in, and ticks live. A few locked-down intranets block third-party scripts, which is the only reason not to use it.
iFrame is the most compatible. It is a sealed box — it cannot touch your page and your page cannot touch it — and it still ticks live. This is the easiest one to get past an IT department.
Image works absolutely everywhere. It is a plain PNG, so there is no JavaScript and nothing to whitelist: email signatures, forums, Word documents and marketplace listings all take it happily. It is regenerated every night, so the number is never stale, but it cannot tick.
Using WordPress?
You have two shortcuts. Paste any Until Then date page URL on its own line into a block and it expands into the countdown by itself — no code at all. Or install our free plugin, Until Then Countdown, which adds an [untilthen] shortcode and a visual block so editors never see markup.
Questions people ask
Which time zone does it count in?
The visitor’s own. A countdown to 25 December reaches zero when it becomes 25 December where the reader is, which is the right behaviour for a date. If you are counting to a specific moment instead — a broadcast, a sale opening, a ceremony — tick count to a specific time and it will count to that one instant everywhere in the world.
Will it keep working?
Yes. There is nothing to renew and nothing to log in to. Once the countdown reaches your date it says so rather than going blank.
Can I match my own brand colours?
Choose the Custom theme and you get pickers for background, text and accent, plus a corner-radius slider and an inherit from my page typeface option. This is the bit people putting a countdown on a company intranet always ask for.
Does it set cookies or track anyone?
No. The widget sets no cookies, stores nothing, and sends no analytics. Loading it does mean the reader’s browser fetches a file from untilthen.co.uk, which as with any web request is visible in an ordinary server log. If you would rather not load anything from us at all, use the image version and host the picture yourself.
Do I have to keep the credit line?
No — there is a switch for it, and one for the untilthen.co.uk mark on the widget itself. We would rather you kept them, but a countdown you have had to argue with is not one you will use.