Excel vs Google Sheets for Financial Modeling

Updated April 2026 · 7 minute read

For thirty years, financial modeling meant Excel. Investment banks trained on it, FP&A teams were built around it, and every major modeling course taught it as the only option. That's changing. The question for finance professionals in 2026 is not whether Google Sheets is "ready" — it is whether the trade-offs still favor Excel for your specific workflow. Here is an honest comparison.

The short version

• Excel still wins for extremely large models (100K+ rows), heavy VBA automation, and environments locked into Microsoft 365 + Power Query / Power Pivot.
• Google Sheets has caught up (and pulled ahead) for collaboration, AI tooling, and any model that more than one person needs to touch at the same time.
• The historical gap — Excel keyboard shortcuts and finance-specific tooling — is the one part Google Sheets used to lose on. Extensions like SheetDog have mostly closed that gap.

Where Excel still wins

• Very large models — three-statement models with millions of cells, scenario engines, tick-and-tie audits across 50+ tabs. Sheets handles big files but Excel is faster at the upper end.
• VBA and macro automation — VBA still has more sophisticated automation than Apps Script for legacy enterprise workflows.
• Power Query and Power Pivot — Microsoft's data transformation and modeling stack is genuinely powerful for analysts working primarily with structured data.
• Established workflows — your team has shared models, templates, and macros built up over years. Migration cost is real.

Where Google Sheets wins

• Real-time collaboration — multiple analysts editing the same model during close, board prep, or a live forecast review. No emailed versions, no merge conflicts.
• Permissioning — share a single model with the CFO, the auditors, or a board member without creating a new copy.
• No install footprint — consultants, partner firms, and external reviewers can open the model in a browser without buying an Excel license.
• AI tooling — the AI extension ecosystem for Sheets has moved faster than for Excel. SheetDog, RizzCalc, Coefficient, Gemini, and others are mostly Sheets-first or Sheets-only.
• Free — both for the end user and for sharing externally. No license seat to manage.

The historical objection: keyboard shortcuts

For a long time, the single biggest objection to switching was Excel's keyboard shortcuts. Finance professionals build their speed on Alt sequences (Alt+H,B,A for borders, Alt+H,F,S for font size, Alt+H,9 for decrease decimal) and Ctrl chords (Ctrl+1, Ctrl+~, Ctrl+Shift+L). Native Google Sheets has a fraction of these.

That gap is mostly closed now. Chrome extensions like SheetDog bring 30+ Excel-style keyboard shortcuts into Sheets — Alt sequences, Ctrl chords, format cycles. SheetWhiz and ShortieCuts cover similar ground. For a working analyst, the muscle-memory gap between Excel and a properly-configured Google Sheets is small.

The newer advantage: AI editing

The thing Google Sheets now does better than Excel is AI-driven model building and editing. SheetDog brings Anthropic's Claude directly into Sheets, so you can describe a model in plain English and watch it construct tabs, structure, formulas, and formatting. Targeted edits — "add a YoY growth row below revenue", "format this with our standard header colors" — happen directly in the spreadsheet.

Microsoft Copilot is improving in Excel but the third-party AI extension ecosystem has moved faster on the Sheets side. For AI-augmented modeling, Sheets is the better surface today.

Side by side

Which to use, by workflow

• Investment banking deal model (precedent-driven, single-modeler ownership, large) — Excel is still the safer default.
• FP&A planning and forecasting (multi-stakeholder, recurring, cross-team review) — Google Sheets, with SheetDog for shortcuts and AI.
• Board deck model (shared with execs, finance, board) — Google Sheets wins on collaboration alone.
• Equity research / personal portfolio — Either; Sheets if you want to share, Excel if you want maximum local power.
• Quick analysis or ad-hoc — Sheets, almost always.

The bottom line

Excel still wins for the largest, most complex, single-owner models. For everything else — and especially for any model more than one person needs to touch — the move to Google Sheets is now a net upgrade. The historical objection (lost shortcuts and tooling) is mostly solved by extensions like SheetDog. The newer advantage (AI-driven editing) only runs on the Sheets side.