FeedBurner FeedCount: How to Change the Chicklet Text (and What to Use Now)

The FeedBurner FeedCount chicklet was the little badge that showed how many people subscribed to a blog’s RSS feed. By default it said “readers”, but a simple trick let you change that word to anything you liked. This article explains the FeedCount label hack, what has happened to FeedBurner since, and better ways to show off your audience today.

Quick answer: To change the text in a FeedBurner FeedCount chicklet, you added &label=yourword to the end of the chicklet’s image URL, for example &label=fans instead of the default “readers”. FeedBurner has since lost many features and the FeedCount image no longer loads, so remove old chicklets from your site and show an email subscriber count or a follow button instead.

What was the FeedBurner FeedCount chicklet?

If you ran a FeedBurner feed on your blog and wanted to show off your number of feed subscribers, FeedBurner chicklets let you do it with no effort. You could pick a fully custom color scheme, with an option for an animated count, so the badge blended in with your site.

By default the FeedBurner FeedCount chicklet showed the text “readers” after the number. In the days of Google Reader and Bloglines, a big FeedCount number was a popular form of social proof for bloggers.

How to change the FeedBurner FeedCount text

Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration shared a nice hack to change the “readers” text to anything you want, such as “fans”:

1. Copy the FeedCount code that FeedBurner gave you from the Publicize section of your feed.
2. Find the chicklet’s image URL inside the code.
3. Append &label=fans to the end of that URL (replace fans with your own word).
4. Save the code in your blog sidebar, and the chicklet shows your new label.

That was another cool FeedBurner customization I learnt soon after the customizable FeedBurner headline animator.

Does FeedBurner FeedCount still work?

Not reliably. Google bought FeedBurner in 2007 and slowly cut it back over the years. It shut down the FeedBurner APIs in 2012, which broke many plugins and subscriber counts, and in 2021 it announced a move to new infrastructure that removed email subscriptions and other “non-core” features. When we checked in October 2026, FeedCount chicklet image URLs no longer returned an image.

If an old FeedCount chicklet is still in your sidebar or theme, it is probably showing a broken image. Remove it. If your feed itself has problems, see our guide on FeedBurner feeds not updating.

Better ways to show your audience today

• Email subscriber count. Newsletter services such as Mailchimp or a self-hosted tool can give you a real subscriber number to show. We moved our own subscribers away from FeedBurner, as described in moving FeedBurner subscribers to Amazon SES.
• Social follow buttons. Official follow buttons from social networks show your audience where readers already spend their time.
• A plain RSS link. Feed readers such as Feedly still use RSS, so keep a visible link to your feed without a counter.
• Testimonials or “join X readers” text. Write the number into your signup box by hand and update it now and then.

FAQ

How do I change the “readers” text in FeedBurner FeedCount?

Add &label=yourword to the end of the chicklet’s image URL. For example, &label=fans changed “readers” to “fans”.

Is FeedBurner still working?

FeedBurner still exists in reduced form, but Google removed email subscriptions and other features in 2021 and 2022, and the FeedCount chicklet no longer loads.

What can I use instead of a FeedCount chicklet?

Show an email subscriber count, social follow buttons or a simple RSS link instead.

Should I remove FeedBurner chicklets from my blog?

Yes. A broken badge looks untidy and adds a request to an outside server on every page load.