Google Sheets is the better pick when several people work on the same file, when you want everything in the browser with nothing to install, and when free matters. It also has functions Excel lacks, such as QUERY, IMPORTRANGE and GOOGLEFINANCE. Excel is the better pick for large or complex models, for cleaning and combining data with Power Query and the Data Model, for VBA macros, and for desktop speed on heavy files. Excel is still the common standard in finance and accounting, while many startups, schools and marketing teams run on Sheets, so plenty of people end up needing both.
| Topic | Google Sheets | Excel |
|---|---|---|
| Price (US) | Free with a Google account. Google Workspace plans for businesses add custom email, more storage and admin controls: Business Starter $7, Business Standard $14 and Business Plus $22 per user per month with a one-year commitment, or $8.40, $16.80 and $26.40 paid month to month. | Excel for the web is free with a Microsoft account, for files saved in OneDrive. The desktop app comes with Microsoft 365 Personal ($99.99 a year or $9.99 a month), Family ($129.99 a year, up to 6 people) or Premium ($199.99 a year). Business plans run $7 (Basic, web and mobile apps only), $23.50 (Standard) and $32 (Premium) per user per month, paid yearly. Office Home 2024 is a one-time $179.99 for one PC or Mac. |
| Where it runs | In the browser, plus apps for Android, iPhone and iPad. | Desktop apps for Windows and Mac, Excel for the web, and mobile apps. |
| Working offline | Possible in Chrome or Edge after you turn on offline access with the Google Docs Offline extension. | The desktop app works offline with files on your computer. |
| Editing together | Built in: everyone with access edits the same file at once and can leave comments. | Co-authoring works when the file is on OneDrive or SharePoint Online and everyone uses a supported version, such as Excel for Microsoft 365 or Excel for the web. |
| Version history | Every change is kept. You can restore or name versions, and right-click a cell to see its edit history. | Available for files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, where you can restore an earlier version. |
| Size limits | Up to 20 million cells or 100 MB per spreadsheet created in or converted to Sheets. | 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns per worksheet. The number of worksheets is limited only by memory. |
| Automation | Apps Script, written in JavaScript. Scripts are saved in Drive and run on Google's servers. | VBA macros in the desktop app (they don't run in the browser), and Office Scripts in Excel for the web, Windows and Mac. |
| Cleaning and combining data | Formulas such as QUERY, IMPORTRANGE and FILTER. Connected Sheets brings BigQuery tables into a sheet if you have BigQuery set up. | Power Query (Get & Transform) on Windows, Mac and the web, and the Data Model for working with several related tables in one workbook. |
| AI assistant | Gemini in Sheets builds tables, writes formulas, creates pivot tables and charts, and analyzes data. It comes with Workspace Business Standard and higher plans, not Business Starter. | Copilot in Excel edits workbooks, writes formulas, builds charts and PivotTables, and finds insights. Microsoft 365 Personal, Family and Premium include it for the subscription owner, on files saved to OneDrive. Business Standard and Premium include it; Business Basic doesn't. |
| Pivot tables | Yes, built from a side panel editor with rows, columns, values and filters. | Yes. PivotTables can also use the Data Model, which joins several tables. |
| Charts | Column, bar, line, area, pie, scatter, combo and more, set up in the chart editor panel. | Column, bar, line, area, pie, scatter, combo and more, styled in the Format pane. |
| Functions only one has | QUERY, IMPORTRANGE, GOOGLEFINANCE, SPLIT, COUNTUNIQUE, ARRAYFORMULA and REGEXMATCH. Both apps have LAMBDA, MAP and BYROW, and Sheets calls its saved LAMBDAs named functions. | Python in Excel and STOCKHISTORY on qualifying Microsoft 365 plans, plus the Power Query and Data Model tools above. |
| Excel files | Opens and edits .xlsx files, either converted to Sheets or as-is in Office Compatibility Mode (in Chrome, with the Office Editing extension). Downloads as .xlsx. | Native .xlsx. A Sheets file downloaded as .xlsx opens in Excel, but Sheets-only functions such as QUERY have no Excel equivalent. |
| Formulas you already know | SUM, IF, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, XLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH, UNIQUE, SORT and FILTER all exist, a few with different arguments. | The same everyday functions, plus dynamic arrays that spill without a wrapper. |
Checked against Google and Microsoft documentation in October 2026. Sources.
Every formula below runs on the same sample sheet, the Excel one in Excel mode and the Sheets one in Sheets mode. The results are calculated by our formula engine.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Order | Date | Rep | Region | Product | Units | Price |
| 2 | SO-1001 | 9/2/2026 | Ana Ruiz | East | Widget | 40 | $52 |
| 3 | SO-1002 | 9/4/2026 | Raj Patel | West | Gadget | 25 | $89 |
| 4 | SO-1003 | 9/8/2026 | Lee Chen | East | Gizmo | 12 | $145 |
| 5 | SO-1004 | 9/11/2026 | Ana Ruiz | North | Gadget | 30 | $89 |
| 6 | SO-1005 | 9/15/2026 | Kim Ortiz | West | Widget | 55 | $52 |
| 7 | SO-1006 | 9/17/2026 | Raj Patel | East | Widget | 18 | $52 |
| 8 | SO-1007 | 9/22/2026 | Lee Chen | South | Gadget | 22 | $89 |
| 9 | SO-1008 | 9/24/2026 | Kim Ortiz | East | Gizmo | 9 | $145 |
| 10 | SO-1009 | 9/28/2026 | Ana Ruiz | West | Widget | 35 | $52 |
| 11 | SO-1010 | 9/30/2026 | Mo Diaz | East | Gadget | 26 | $89 |
Excel
=FILTER(C2:C11,(D2:D11="East")*(F2:F11>20))
| Ana Ruiz |
| Mo Diaz |
Google Sheets
=FILTER(C2:C11,D2:D11="East",F2:F11>20)
| Ana Ruiz |
| Mo Diaz |
Excel joins the tests into one include argument by multiplying them. Sheets takes each test as its own argument. Paste the Sheets version into Excel and the second test becomes Excel's if_empty argument, so it is quietly ignored.
Excel
=FILTER(C2:C11,(D2:D11="North")*(F2:F11>50),"None")
| None |
Google Sheets
=IFNA(FILTER(C2:C11,D2:D11="North",F2:F11>50),"None")
| None |
Excel's FILTER has an if_empty argument; with no matches and no fallback it shows #CALC!. Sheets' FILTER has no fallback argument and shows #N/A, so you wrap it in IFNA.
Excel
=SORT(E2:F11,2,-1)
| Widget | 55 |
| Widget | 40 |
| Widget | 35 |
| Gadget | 30 |
| Gadget | 26 |
| + 5 more rows | |
Google Sheets
=SORT(E2:F11,2,FALSE)
| Widget | 55 |
| Widget | 40 |
| Widget | 35 |
| Gadget | 30 |
| Gadget | 26 |
| + 5 more rows | |
Both sort by the second column of the range. Excel uses -1 for descending; Sheets uses FALSE for "not ascending". Excel's -1 in Sheets, or FALSE in Excel, sorts the wrong way without an error.
Excel
=COUNTA(UNIQUE(C2:C11))
| 5 |
Google Sheets
=COUNTUNIQUE(C2:C11)
| 5 |
Sheets has COUNTUNIQUE. Excel counts the list UNIQUE returns. The Excel version also works in Sheets.
Excel
=F2:F11*G2:G11
| 2080 |
| 2225 |
| 1740 |
| 2670 |
| 2860 |
| + 5 more rows |
Google Sheets
=ARRAYFORMULA(F2:F11*G2:G11)
| 2080 |
| 2225 |
| 1740 |
| 2670 |
| 2860 |
| + 5 more rows |
In Microsoft 365, multiplying two ranges spills one result per row on its own. In Sheets you wrap it in ARRAYFORMULA, or press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to add it.
Excel
=IF(F2:F11>=25,"Bulk","Standard")
| Bulk |
| Bulk |
| Standard |
| Bulk |
| Bulk |
| + 5 more rows |
Google Sheets
=ARRAYFORMULA(IF(F2:F11>=25,"Bulk","Standard"))
| Bulk |
| Bulk |
| Standard |
| Bulk |
| Bulk |
| + 5 more rows |
The same pattern: one IF that fills the column spills in Excel and needs ARRAYFORMULA in Sheets.
Excel
=HSTACK(SORT(UNIQUE(D2:D11)),SUMIFS(F2:F11,D2:D11,SORT(UNIQUE(D2:D11))))
| East | 105 |
| North | 30 |
| South | 22 |
| West | 115 |
Google Sheets
=QUERY(A1:G11,"select D, sum(F) group by D",1)
| Region | sum Units |
|---|---|
| East | 105 |
| North | 30 |
| South | 22 |
| West | 115 |
Excel builds the table from UNIQUE and SUMIFS. Sheets can do the same, but QUERY does it in one readable line and adds a header row (Region, sum Units).
Excel
=XLOOKUP("SO-1006",A2:A11,C2:C11)
| Raj Patel |
Google Sheets
=XLOOKUP("SO-1006",A2:A11,C2:C11)
| Raj Patel |
Identical in both. XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH work the same way in current Excel and Sheets.
Excel
=COUNTIFS(D2:D11,"East",E2:E11,"Widget")
| 2 |
Google Sheets
=COUNTIFS(D2:D11,"East",E2:E11,"Widget")
| 2 |
Identical in both, like SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS and the other conditional functions.
The first comparison, on the sample sheet. Edit either formula, or swap them, and watch what each app does with the other's syntax.
Excel mode
Sheets mode
Several people need to edit at the same time, the file lives in a browser tab shared by link, your team already uses Google Workspace, or you want QUERY and IMPORTRANGE to pull and summarize data from other sheets. It costs nothing to start.
The model is large or calculation-heavy, you clean and combine data from several sources with Power Query, you rely on VBA macros, or you work in finance and accounting, where Excel files are what clients and colleagues expect.
Practice both: the Excel course or the Google Sheets course. The formulas carry over, and each course points out where the other app differs.
Yes. Upload an .xlsx file to Drive and open it in Sheets, either converted to a Google Sheet or as-is in Office Compatibility Mode (in Chrome, with the Office Editing extension). You can download any Sheet as .xlsx.
Most do, unchanged: SUM, IF, SUMIFS, XLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH, UNIQUE and more. The ones to check are FILTER and SORT, which take different arguments, and array formulas, which need ARRAYFORMULA in Sheets.
Google Sheets is free with a Google account, and Excel for the web is free with a Microsoft account. To get desktop Excel, Microsoft 365 Personal is $99.99 a year in the US, or Office Home 2024 is a one-time $179.99. Businesses pay per user: Google Workspace starts at $7 a month with a one-year commitment, and Microsoft 365 Business Standard, which includes desktop Excel, is $23.50 a month paid yearly. Prices checked October 2026.
For everyday tracking, reporting and shared work, yes, and its collaboration is easier. For very large files, heavy modeling, Power Query and macros, Excel does more.
It covers the formula skills interviewers test: lookups, conditional totals, FILTER, pivot tables and QUERY. Many analyst roles also expect Excel or SQL, so if a posting names Excel, practice in Excel too.
Yes, in Chrome or Edge on a computer, once you turn on offline access with the Google Docs Offline extension. Changes sync when you reconnect.
Excel is more common in finance, accounting and operations tests. Startups, schools and marketing teams often use Sheets. The core skills carry over, so practice the one named in the job posting first.
Last reviewed October 2026. Microsoft and Excel are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies; Google Sheets is a trademark of Google LLC. This comparison is independent.