Best Free AI Tools for Excel & Spreadsheets
Spreadsheet work splits into three jobs: writing the formula you cannot remember, cleaning and analysing a sheet someone else made, and turning a table of numbers into something a manager can read. This list covers all three — formula generators that live inside Excel and Google Sheets, an AI spreadsheet that pulls in live data, and analysis tools that take a file and return charts and a written summary. Every free entry is on a real free tier, with the tier's actual limits printed next to it — and every listing carries a badge: FREE for a genuinely free tool, FREEMIUM for a free tier with real limits, PAID when there is no free plan. Three respected paid names close the page as benchmarks, so you can judge the free tiers against what money buys.
How to choose in 30 seconds
- Stuck on one formula? GPTExcel or Formula Bot (now Better Analyst) will write it and explain it in plain English — start with GPTExcel's free tier, it gives you the most runs a month.
- You live inside Excel or Sheets all day? Ajelix works through add-ins in the apps themselves, so you never leave the spreadsheet.
- A messy file that needs analysing? Upload it to Julius AI and ask questions in plain English — it returns charts and a summary you can hand to someone.
- Reporting that repeats every week? Rows connects live data and automates the report; its free tier is small, so treat it as a try-out before you commit.
- One rule for all of them: check the formula's result on a row you can verify by hand before you trust it on the whole sheet. AI writes plausible-looking formulas that are wrong in exactly the way a busy person misses.
The list at a glance
| Tool | Badge | Free tier / price, in one line | The catch |
|---|
| GPTExcel | FREEMIUM | Free forever: 50 credits a month, 5 free tool runs a day, files up to 5 MB | 50 credits a month; scripts and SQL burn them fast |
| Formula Bot | FREEMIUM | Free: 10 chat messages and 100 AI credits a month, 1 connected data source | Only 10 chat messages a month free |
| Ajelix | FREEMIUM | Free: 10 requests a month with access to all tools, incl. Excel & Sheets add-ins | 10 requests a month; paid starts at $39/user a month |
| Rows | FREEMIUM | Free forever: 5 AI tasks a month, 10 integrations, 3 guests | Only 5 AI tasks a month — enough to try, not to work with |
| Sourcetable | FREEMIUM | Free: 50 credits a month, resets monthly | 50 credits covers only a few real analyses |
| Quadratic | FREEMIUM | Personal free plan: limited AI usage, limited sharing, files & connections | Free AI allowance is not stated — it can run out without warning |
| Julius AI | FREEMIUM | Free: a daily credit allowance (amount not stated on the pricing page) | Free allowance is unstated, so a heavy day can stop mid-analysis |
| Microsoft Copilot in Excel | PAID | $30/user a month, paid yearly, on top of a Microsoft 365 licence | No free tier for Copilot inside Excel itself |
| Google Gemini in Sheets | PAID | From $14/user a month (Business Standard, billed annually) | Not included on the $7 Business Starter plan at all |
| Numerous.ai | PAID | $1 for a 7-day trial, then from $10/month billed annually; no free plan | The trial rolls into a paid annual plan unless you cancel |
The tools, checked one by one
Free status: a free plan, $0 forever with no credit card: 50 credits a month, 5 free tool runs a day, and files up to 5 MB (10 per chat). Pro is $9 a month for about 3,000 credits; Pro Plus is $18 a month for about 10,000 credits, with yearly billing saving 30%.
GPTExcel is the formula specialist: describe what you want in plain English and it writes the Excel or Google Sheets formula, explains it, and can also generate pivot tables, charts, VBA scripts and SQL. It also chats with an uploaded spreadsheet file. Of the free tiers on this page, it gives you the most to work with in a month.
Best for: generating and explaining Excel and Sheets formulas, plus pivots, charts and file chat.
Honest limit: 50 credits a month is a real ceiling — scripts, SQL and regex are in the free plan but burn credits fast, so a heavy week can leave you waiting for the monthly reset.
Free status: a free plan, $0 with no credit card: 10 chat messages a month and 100 AI credits a month, 1 connected data source and 1 AI dashboard. Note: Formula Bot has rebranded as Better Analyst — formulabot.com now redirects there, and the free plan above is as stated on its pricing page.
Formula Bot answers plain-English questions about a spreadsheet and gives back formulas, charts and dashboards. Ask "which region grew fastest last quarter?" and it works out the answer from your data instead of making you build the formula yourself.
Best for: asking plain-English questions of a spreadsheet and getting formulas, charts and dashboards back.
Honest limit: only 10 chat messages a month free — a couple of working sessions uses it up, so this is a try-it tier rather than a daily driver. Its paid prices did not render on the official pricing page we read, so we print none here.
Free status: a free plan with 10 free requests a month and access to all tools, including the Excel add-in and the Google Sheets add-on. Paid plans start at Lite $39/user a month ($32 billed yearly), then Pro $99 ($82) and Max $199 ($165). One honest note: a second FAQ answer on the same pricing page says 5 free requests a month — either way, it is a handful, and the 10 figure is the one in the main pricing FAQ.
Ajelix's advantage is that it lives where you already work: formula generation, templates and dashboards through add-ins inside Excel and Google Sheets, rather than a separate website you copy-paste from.
Best for: formula generation, templates and dashboards inside Excel and Sheets via add-ins.
Honest limit: 10 requests a month free, and the paid jump is the steepest on this page — $39 a user a month is a team-budget decision, not a personal one.
Free status: a free plan, $0 forever with no credit card: 5 AI tasks a month, manual data import, 10 integrations, 3 guests and 1 MB file imports. Plus is $8 a month per user ($6 billed annually) with 200 AI tasks a month; Pro is $79 a month plus $8 per user ($59 plus $6 annually).
Rows is a spreadsheet rebuilt around live data: it pulls figures from your business tools, keeps them updated, and uses AI to build and automate the reporting on top. It is the tool on this page for a report that has to be rebuilt every week.
Best for: an AI spreadsheet that pulls in live business data and automates repeating reports.
Honest limit: only 5 AI tasks a month free — enough to try the idea, not to run a real weekly report on. And it is a different spreadsheet app, not Excel or Sheets, so your files live in a second place.
Free status: a free plan, $0 a user a month: 50 credits included, resetting monthly (with message query limits). Pro is $29 a user a month for 2,000 credits a month; Max is $100 a user a month for 6,000 credits.
Sourcetable is an AI spreadsheet with Python and SQL built in and live connectors to your data sources, aimed at deeper analysis than a formula generator — the kind of work where you would otherwise be stitching three tools together.
Best for: an AI spreadsheet with Python, SQL and live data connectors for deeper analysis.
Honest limit: 50 credits a month free covers only a few real analyses, and this is a power-user tool — if you only need a formula now and then, GPTExcel above is the simpler pick.
Free status: a Personal free plan with "limited AI usage" — the pricing page does not state the exact amount — plus limited sharing, files and connections. Pro is $18 a user a month billed annually (with $20 of AI credits a month included); Business is $36 a user a month billed annually. It is open source, with self-hosting on the Enterprise plan.
Quadratic is a spreadsheet with Python and SQL inside the cells, plus AI help — built for analysts who want to run real code on their data without leaving the grid. The open-source angle matters if your team cares about where its data lives.
Best for: analysts who want a Python- and SQL-powered spreadsheet with AI help.
Honest limit: the free AI allowance is unspecified, so it can run out without warning — and sharing and files are capped until Pro. We print no free-allowance number because the official page states none.
Free status: a free plan, $0, with a daily credit allowance — the pricing page does not state the exact amount. Plus is $20 a month ($16 billed annually); Pro is $45 a month ($37 billed annually); Business is $450 a month ($375 billed annually).
Julius AI is the analyst in a chat window: upload a spreadsheet and ask questions in plain English, and it returns charts, analysis and a written report you can hand to someone. It also builds presentations from the results. Of the tools here, it is the closest to "give the file to a junior analyst and get a summary back."
Best for: analysing a spreadsheet and turning it into charts, presentations and reports.
Honest limit: the free daily credit amount is unstated, so a heavy day can stop mid-analysis — and files are stored only 7 days on the Plus plan, so do not treat it as your archive.
Three paid benchmarks — no free plan
Three names you will meet in every "best spreadsheet AI" roundup, listed here with their real entry prices so the free tiers above have an honest yardstick. None has a free plan; all are badged PAID. Numerous.ai's $1 trial is a trial, not a free tier.
Price: the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on is $30.00/user a month, paid yearly (annual subscription, auto-renews), per Microsoft's official enterprise pricing page — and that is on top of the Microsoft 365 licence you already pay for. No free tier for Copilot inside Excel itself.
Copilot in Excel is AI inside the real Excel app: describe an analysis in words, get formulas and visualisations, and ask questions about the data in the sheet you are already working in. The free "Copilot Chat" that comes with eligible plans does not include the in-Excel features.
Best for: Excel users inside a Microsoft 365 organisation who want AI inside the real Excel app.
Honest limit: $30 a user a month on top of your existing licence is a company decision, not a personal one — and agent usage is metered separately (Copilot Credits at $0.01 each).
Price: from $14/user a month (Business Standard, billed annually), per Google's Workspace pricing page. Gemini in Sheets is not supported on the cheapest plan, Business Starter ($7/user a month) — it is included from Business Standard up. A 14-day free trial is available.
Gemini in Sheets brings Google's AI into the spreadsheet your team already shares: ask questions about the data, generate tables and formulas, and surface insights without exporting anything. It only makes sense if your organisation is already on Google Workspace.
Best for: teams already on Google Workspace who want Gemini inside Sheets.
Honest limit: there is no way to get Gemini in Sheets for free or on the $7 Starter plan — the floor is $14 a user a month, for every user on the plan, not just the ones who use AI.
Price: $1 for a 7-day trial, then from $10/month billed annually. No permanent free plan. The trial rolls into the paid annual plan unless you cancel it.
Numerous.ai adds a simple =AI() function to Google Sheets and Excel: write one prompt in a cell and it runs down the whole column — classifying, extracting or writing for every row. It is the most direct idea on this page, and the $1 trial is genuinely cheap to test.
Best for: running one AI prompt down a whole column with a simple =AI() function in Sheets or Excel.
Honest limit: usage is character-metered (500,000 characters on the Personal plan), and the $1 trial converts to a paid annual plan — set a reminder to cancel if you only wanted a look. Its pricing page rendered the Personal and Pro prices inconsistently on the day we checked, so we print only the "from $10/month billed annually" starting figure.
From our channel: our AI WorkStack channel tests one real office job in an AI tool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday — including a free ChatGPT add-in for Excel, coming soon. Watch at
AI WorkStack on YouTube, or read the written tutorials at
AI WorkStack Articles.
Questions people ask about free spreadsheet AI tools
Which tool should I try first?
GPTExcel, if you mainly need formulas: its free tier gives you 50 credits a month and 5 tool runs a day, the most usable free allowance on this page. If you need a whole file analysed instead, upload it to Julius AI and ask questions in plain English.
Can I trust an AI-written formula?
Trust it after you test it, not before. AI formulas look right even when they are wrong — a wrong range, a condition flipped, a function that does not exist in your version of Excel. Check the result on a row you can verify by hand, then copy it down. That one habit is worth more than any tool on this page.
Do these tools work with Google Sheets as well as Excel?
Most do: GPTExcel, Formula Bot and Ajelix all cover both, and Numerous.ai and Julius AI work with Sheets files too. Rows, Sourcetable and Quadratic are their own spreadsheet apps, not Excel or Sheets — your files live in a second place with those.
What happens to my data when I upload a spreadsheet?
It leaves your computer and is processed on the tool's servers, under that tool's privacy policy. Never upload a sheet with salaries, customer details, unreleased numbers or anything your employer would not want on a third-party server — use a copy with the sensitive columns removed, or the tool your IT department approved.
Why are the free tiers so small — 5 tasks, 10 messages, 50 credits?
Each company fences the thing it believes you will pay to unlock: GPTExcel fences credits, Formula Bot fences messages, Rows fences AI tasks, Ajelix fences requests. The limit printed on each listing is the fence you will hit first — knowing it before you sign up is the whole point of this directory.
Why does a free-tools directory list paid tools at all?
As benchmarks — and because "no free plan" is useful information. Copilot in Excel and Gemini in Sheets appear in every spreadsheet-AI roundup; knowing they start at $30 and $14 a user a month respectively, with no free tier, tells you exactly what the free tools on this page are saving you. Paid listings are always badged PAID with the real entry price, and a trial is always called a trial.
Checked November 2026. Every free tier above was verified against the tool's official pricing page, plans page or official help documentation. Free tiers change without much notice — confirm the current limits on the tool's own site before you rely on them, and tell us via the channel if you spot a change before we do.