Excel vs Google Sheets: price, limits and macros

Excel vs Google Sheets at a glance

Google Sheets fits free, shared work in a browser, and Excel fits offline work, large data sets and VBA macros. Sheets costs nothing for personal use, while Excel's edge is 1,048,576 rows per sheet and VBA.

Is Google Sheets the same as Excel?

No, they are separate products. Both give you a grid, formulas and charts, but Google Sheets runs in a browser and saves every file to Google Drive, while Excel is installed on your computer and saves files wherever you choose. Sharing, offline use, size limits and macros mostly follow from that one difference.

Since Sheets files are already online, anyone with the link can open the same file and edit it alongside you. Excel files usually stay on one computer, and emailing them around creates several copies with no obvious latest version.

Most everyday formulas work in both

SUM, IF, VLOOKUP and other common functions share the same names and syntax in both apps. A workbook that only uses functions found in both calculates the same way when opened in the other app, and differences show up only when a formula relies on a function one app lacks. For which functions exist where, see "Google Sheets functions list: Excel equivalents".

How much do Excel and Google Sheets cost?

Google Sheets is free with a personal Google account, and so is Excel for the web with a Microsoft account. Desktop Excel is $99.99 a year through Microsoft 365 Personal or a one-time $179.99 for Office Home 2024. For businesses, both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 charge per user per month.

Microsoft 365 or a one-time Office Home 2024 license

Microsoft 365 Personal is a subscription at $99.99 a year or $9.99 a month. As long as you pay, you get the latest desktop Excel, and Copilot is included. Office Home 2024 is a one-time $179.99 purchase that stays on Excel 2024 and does not get later features.

Two years of Microsoft 365 Personal add up to $199.98, more than paying $179.99 once. So if you will keep the same computer for at least two years and can do without Copilot, the one-time license is cheaper.

Excel for the web is free

With a Microsoft account, Excel for the web runs in a browser for free, and so do the mobile apps. That is enough for opening a file someone sent you and making small edits. If you only need to view a CSV export, the viewers in "CSV Viewer Options: What Opens 1M+ Rows Free" also work.

Google Workspace for business accounts

Running Sheets for a company requires a paid Google Workspace subscription, billed per user per month before tax. Business Starter, Standard and Plus cover up to 300 users. Pooled Drive storage is 30 GB per user on Starter and 2 TB per user on Standard.

Collaboration, AutoSave and version history

Both apps allow several people to edit one file at the same time. What differs is setup: a Sheets file is shareable as soon as it exists, but an Excel workbook first has to be saved to Microsoft's cloud.

Google Sheets shares with a link and keeps version history

A Sheets file is saved to Google Drive the moment you create it, so sending the URL is enough for someone to edit it with you. The sharing settings control who can only view and who can edit.

No one needs to send the file back, which leaves a single current copy. Version history shows who changed what and lets you restore an earlier version, and you can name up to 15 versions per spreadsheet to mark milestones.

Excel co-authoring and AutoSave need OneDrive

Two people can edit an Excel workbook at once only if it is saved to OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. A workbook stored in a local folder, on a file server or on an on-premises SharePoint site cannot be co-edited, and the desktop app also requires a Microsoft 365 subscription.

AutoSave works the same way. On OneDrive or SharePoint Online it is on by default and saves every few seconds, with a new version history entry roughly every 10 minutes; on a local drive it stays off and you save manually.

Row limits, cell limits and offline use

Installed Excel opens and edits files with no internet connection, while Google Sheets needs setup before it works without a connection. You need the Google Docs Offline extension in Chrome or Edge with offline access turned on, so set it up while you still have a connection.

Google Sheets cell limit: 20 million cells per file

Google Sheets caps a file by cells rather than rows, at up to 20 million cells or 100MB for any spreadsheet created in or converted to Sheets. Every tab draws on that one total, so wide tables run out of room with fewer rows. Converting an Excel file also drops any cell holding more than 50,000 characters.

Excel row limit: 1,048,576 rows per sheet

Each Excel worksheet holds up to 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. Spreading data over several tabs lets one workbook hold well over a million rows. Installed Excel also does its calculations on your own computer rather than over the network.

Macros and AI: VBA, Apps Script, Copilot and Gemini

A macro captures a series of steps so you can repeat them with one click. Both apps can record your steps as code, but each writes a different language, so nothing you record in one runs in the other.

VBA macros don't run in Google Sheets

Open an Excel workbook in Sheets and none of its automation runs. Excel stores macros as VBA code, which Sheets cannot execute. A macro recorded in Sheets becomes an Apps Script function instead, and you can open and edit it in the Apps Script editor.

Moving a workflow built on VBA to Sheets means rewriting every macro in Apps Script. Google publishes a guide to converting VBA macros, but nothing converts them automatically.

Copilot in Excel vs Gemini in Google Sheets

A Microsoft 365 Personal subscription includes Copilot, with higher usage limits than the free version. Sheets uses Gemini, which can build tables, write formulas, create charts and analyze data. Gemini in Sheets needs an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan.

Which one should you use?

Choose Google Sheets when several people update the same file or when you want to spend nothing. Choose Excel for offline work, for data sets larger than a browser handles comfortably, or for jobs that depend on VBA macros. Plenty of teams use both and pass xlsx files between them.

Open Excel files in Google Sheets without buying Excel

Upload an xlsx file to Google Drive and double-click it, and you can edit it in Sheets with live co-editing included. The Sheets mobile app opens it as well, so checking a file does not require an Excel license.

Some features are lost along the way: macros stop working, links to other workbooks disappear, and protected sheets lose protection, so locked and hidden cells become visible and editable. Reopen the file in Excel before sending it back to a client. For CSV exports going into Excel, see "CSV to Excel: convert without losing leading zeros".

Pick by who edits the file and how big it gets

Two questions decide most cases. Ask them about the file at hand rather than about your whole team.

• Does a team edit the file at the same time? Daily logs, shared inventories and schedules suit Sheets, where one link gets everyone working and version history records who changed what.
• Is one person working through a large data set or running VBA? That suits Excel, which runs offline and allows 1,048,576 rows per sheet.

When a client requires Excel files, you can still work in Sheets and export to xlsx at delivery. Common shortcuts for copy, paste and undo are identical in both apps, and "Excel shortcut keys cheat sheet, Windows and Mac" covers the others.