The invention belongs to the technical field of communication and electrons, and discloses a step counting method based on a mobile terminal. The step counting method includes the steps that when it is detected that the mobile terminal is powered on, a pedometer is started, a monitoring module is started, step counting data of the pedometer is obtained through the monitoring module in real time, and when it is detected that the step counting data of a step counting database needs to be updated, the newest step counting data obtained through the monitoring module is sent to the step counting database. According to the step counting method and device based on the mobile terminal, and after it is detected that the mobile terminal is powered on, the pedometer internally arranged in the mobile terminal is automatically opened in the background; meanwhile, the monitoring module is started to monitor the pedometer at any time, and when the updating request of the step counting database is detected, the monitored newest step counting data is sent to the step counting database. By means of the embodiment of the step counting method and device, the problems that the pedometer is used when WeChat sport is not opened, or as the problem of the WeChat sport appears, the step counting data is not increased are solved.