As an ecommerce business owner, you’re probably managing data across inventory lists, customer orders, and marketing campaign performance. For decades, Microsoft Excel has been the go-to spreadsheet tool for everything from simple to-do lists to complex financial modeling. However, for many small business owners, the steep learning curve, lack of collaboration tools, and recurring cost of a Microsoft Office suite subscription can be barriers.
Whether you need a free Excel replacement for basic tracking or a more feature-rich solution for automated workflows, there are several Excel alternatives that you can use for your business operations.
What is Microsoft Excel?
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet software program that uses a grid of cells to organize and manipulate data. Although it is widely used for high-level accounting or financial analysis, companies also often use the program for general business operations as well. For a retail business, this might include calculating profit margins, tracking cost of goods sold (COGS), or maintaining a master list of vendor contacts.
Excel is proficient at handling complex datasets and processing advanced formulas that other tools might struggle to process quickly. Because it is a desktop-first application, it has the processing power to handle hundreds of thousands of rows of raw data without getting bogged down. However, its greatest strength—its breadth and density—can be a drawback for non-technical users who may find its user interface overwhelming and its advanced features unnecessary for daily tasks.
Before considering alternatives, it is helpful to understand the features Excel provides. These serve as a baseline for what you should expect from any spreadsheet app.
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The calculation engine. Excel’s ability to handle advanced and complex formulas is nearly unmatched. Its engine can process iterative calculations and pivot tables—tools that summarize large datasets into concise reports—across large Excel files without crashing.
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Data visualization. Excel offers a vast library of customizable charts, sparklines (tiny charts in worksheet cells), and conditional formatting—which automatically changes a cell’s color based on its value—that help business owners see trends in spreadsheet data at a glance.
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VBA and Power Query. For advanced users, Excel allows for deep automation through Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Power Query, which can automatically extract and clean data from external sources.
Reasons to use an Excel alternative
Although Excel remains a widely used program for managing structured data, many business owners seek alternatives to Excel. Here are a few reasons:
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Cloud storage/operation. The traditional Excel program stores data on your computer (although it does offer a cloud version without some key features). Many Excel alternatives operate solely on the cloud, bypassing the need for on-site data storage and physical servers, reducing both hardware maintenance costs and the risk of local data loss.
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Cost efficiency. For many small businesses, paying a minimum of $12.50 per month for the full Microsoft Office suite is an added expense. Free alternatives provide the core functionality that covers the daily needs of a vast majority of users.
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Real-time collaboration. In the desktop version of Excel, tracking work in a single static file can become difficult, and work can be lost if someone accidentally overwrites changes. Cloud-based spreadsheet apps provide a real-time audit trail, simultaneous editing, and a version history.
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Accessibility. Many owners run their businesses from tablets or smartphones. Mobile versions of alternatives often provide a more user-friendly experience than the mobile Excel app.
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Automation. Specialized tools now offer automated workflows that can trigger an action, like sending an email, when a specific cell is updated—something traditional Excel files can’t do without using Visual Basic, a Microsoft coding language.
What to look for in a spreadsheet tool
If you are moving away from Excel, you should ensure your new tool still covers these standard features:
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Data validation. The ability to restrict what can be entered into a cell. For example, ensuring a price column only accepts numbers.
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Filter and sort. This is important for business owners managing thousands of SKUs or customer orders.
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Version history. The ability to see who changed what and revert to an older version of the document if an error occurs.
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Export capabilities. The tool must let you export spreadsheets in Excel file formats like .xlsx or .csv so you can share data with vendors or upload it to Shopify.
8 Microsoft Excel alternatives
- Google Sheets
- Zoho Sheet
- LibreOffice Calc
- WPS Office Spreadsheets
- Apple Numbers
- Airtable
- Smartsheet
- OnlyOffice
Choosing the right spreadsheet software depends on whether you need a tool for basic tracking or a more advanced solution. Although Microsoft Excel is powerful for complex datasets, these alternatives to Excel offer real-time collaboration and intuitive interfaces tailored to non-technical users.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets is the industry standard for collaborative spreadsheets, making it ideal for remote teams that need to edit spreadsheets simultaneously without version conflicts. Unlike Excel’s co-authoring, which can sometimes lag or create duplicate copies, Sheets handles dozens of simultaneous editors with ease. Shopify brands can integrate Google Sheets with Shopify Flow to create spreadsheets for tracking orders or inventory levels.
Beyond simple data entry, Sheets offers internal tools like the Explore panel, which uses machine learning to suggest charts and pivot tables based on your raw data. It also features Apps Script, a JavaScript-based platform advanced users can use to build custom sidebars or automate complex tasks without the steep learning curve of Excel’s Visual Basic. This makes it a feature-rich solution for those who want to build a custom back end for their store using only a spreadsheet.
However, power users should be aware of the 10-million-cell limit. Although this is plenty for most small businesses, those handling huge historical complex datasets or intense financial modeling might find the calculation engine slower than Excel. On the flip side, integration with wider Google Workspace—that lets you do things like pulling live spreadsheet data into a Google Docs report—remains a strong point for business users who need a unified ecosystem.
Pricing: Free for personal use; paid Google Workspace plans for businesses start at $3.50 per user, per month.
Zoho Sheet
Zoho Sheet is a spreadsheet app that prioritizes data hygiene—the process of checking data for accuracy and removing errors—and accessibility. A standout feature for ecommerce is its data cleaning tool, which scans your spreadsheet data to identify duplicate customer entries, missing values, or inconsistent data formats. For business owners who export their ecommerce store data to CSV from various marketing platforms, this tool ensures your raw data is polished before you use it for a campaign or financial audit.
Automation is another area where Zoho shines. It features a Custom Functions gallery powered by Deluge (Zoho’s proprietary language). This lets you pull data from external application programming interfaces (APIs)—like checking live shipping rates or currency conversions—directly into your cells. It also includes Zia, an AI assistant that lets non-technical users ask questions in plain English. It can be used to generate complex data visualizations, bypassing the need to manually build pivot tables.
Because Zoho Sheet is part of a larger suite of more than 45 Zoho business apps, it links to Zoho CRM (customer relationship management) and Zoho Books for accounting. This makes it a good choice for businesses who want their sales spreadsheets to communicate directly with their accounting and customer management software. Even as a standalone tool, its user interface is clean and accessible, offering a professional-grade experience at no cost.
Pricing: Zoho Sheet is free for teams with up to 25 users.
LibreOffice Calc
LibreOffice Calc is the strong choice for business owners who prioritize free and open source software and require a heavy-duty desktop application. Because it installs locally, it is faster at processing complex formulas and large Microsoft Excel files than most browser-based tools. It is also the ideal choice for businesses with enhanced security needs because your data never leaves your hard drive unless you upload it to a cloud service.
LibreOffice Calc includes a specialized DataPilot feature, which is its version of a pivot table, letting you pull in raw data from corporate databases and cross-tabulate it with ease. It also features a Scenario Manager that lets you perform “what-if” analysis. For example, you can toggle between different shipping cost scenarios to see how they affect your net profit without changing the underlying data. This functionality makes it a reliable free Excel replacement for advanced users who find cloud tools too limiting.
The primary tradeoff with LibreOffice Calc is the lack of real-time collaboration. Although you can save files to a shared drive, your team can’t edit them simultaneously as they can in Google Sheets. The user interface is also somewhat dated, resembling older versions of the Microsoft Office suite. But for those who prefer substance over style, and compatibility with Excel file formats, it is a powerhouse.
Pricing: LibreOffice Calc is free to download and use for any number of users.
WPS Office Spreadsheets
WPS Spreadsheets is a light spreadsheet tool designed to be a compatible drop-in replacement for Excel. Its most unique feature is the tabbed view, which treats your spreadsheets like tabs in a web browser. Instead of having five separate Excel windows open, you can switch between your inventory list, sales tracker, and shipping log in a single interface. This improves productivity for business owners who need to jump between multiple data sources throughout the day.
For businesses selling visually driven products like apparel, jewelry, or home décor, WPS offers an image-in-cell feature. Instead of images floating on top of the grid, they are embedded directly in the cell, meaning they stay aligned with their SKU and price data even if you sort, filter, or hide rows. It also handles Microsoft Excel files with near-perfect formatting, making it a safe choice for sharing files with vendors who use Excel.
Although the base version is highly capable, the Pro tier adds advanced features like PDF-to-Excel conversion and 20 gigabytes of cloud space. It also removes the occasional ads found in the free version. WPS is a top contender for those who want a familiar user interface and professional features like conditional formatting and pivot tables without the cost of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Pricing: The basic version of WPS Office Spreadsheet is free; paid versions with cloud storage and PDF editing start at $4.99 a month.
Apple Numbers
Apple Numbers takes a visual-first approach to data that is different from the infinite grid of Excel. Instead of a single sheet, you can start with a blank canvas where you can place multiple tables, images, and Gantt charts for project management anywhere on the page. This makes it the best Excel alternative for creating visual reports, such as a year-in-review for your brand or a visual breakdown of your latest marketing campaigns.
Numbers is designed to be highly responsive on Apple devices, a benefit for business owners and teams on the move. The mobile version features large, touch-friendly buttons and a form view that turns your table rows into easy-to-fill cards. This makes it simple to update inventory from an iPhone while in a warehouse. Although it supports about 250 built-in functions, it is not intended for the advanced formulas or complex datasets that power users might require.
One major consideration is the ecosystem. Although you can export spreadsheets as Excel files, some of the unique layout features may not translate perfectly when opened in other software. However, for non-technical users who want to create data summaries and presentations that look professional with minimal effort, Numbers is a user-friendly choice.
Pricing: Free for all users on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
Airtable
Airtable is a hybrid tool that bridges the gap between a spreadsheet tool and a relational database. Although it uses a grid interface to edit spreadsheets, its power lies in the ability to link records between different tables. For a Shopify store owner, this means you can create a Products table and link it to a Vendors table. When you update a vendor’s contact information, that change is instantly reflected across every product it sells, eliminating the need for manual copy-pasting across different sheets.
Airtable offers specialized views, like kanban boards for tracking order fulfillment stages, a gallery view for a visual inventory lookbook, and a calendar view for managing your social media schedule. This flexibility makes it the best Excel alternative for managing business operations that involve more than raw numbers, such as creative assets or supply chain logistics.
Airtable also features a robust Automations engine in its base plans. You can set up “if this, then that” rules. For example, if a shipment status changes to “Delivered” in Airtable, send a Slack message to the customer service team. This transforms your spreadsheet from a static record into an active part of your workflow. Although it has a slightly higher learning curve for those used to basic grids, the organizational benefits for a growing store are significant.
Pricing: A robust free plan is available; paid plans, which include more records per base and advanced automation runs, start at $20 per user, per month.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a feature-rich solution built specifically for project management and remote teams. It looks like a spreadsheet, but it is optimized for tracking timelines, resources, and milestones, which can be useful for tracking high-stakes events like product launches, store redesigns, or special events. Smartsheet lets you switch between a grid view, a Gantt chart, and a card view to see exactly who is responsible for each task.
One of the tool’s most powerful features is the Automated Workflows builder. This lets you set rules like automatically sending an update request to a supplier when a due date is within 48 hours. This reduces the amount of manual follow-up required to keep your business running. It also features a proofing tool that lets you leave comments and annotations directly on images or PDFs attached to a row. This makes it a great tool for managing marketing campaigns with external designers.
Smartsheet is designed for organizations that need transparency across multiple departments. Its dashboards can pull data from dozens of different sheets to give you a high-level view of your business’s health in real-time. Although it represents a somewhat higher investment for teams than a standard spreadsheet app, the time you save on coordination and project tracking often justifies the cost for scaling brands.
Pricing: Smartsheet offers a limited free plan for personal use; paid plans for business collaboration start at $9 per user, per month.
OnlyOffice
OnlyOffice is a professional-grade spreadsheet application that prioritizes compatibility with Microsoft Excel files and enhanced security. It provides the functionality you would expect from the Microsoft Office Suite—including pivot tables, macros, and data validation—but in a collaborative, cloud-based environment. It is unique in that it offers an Enterprise version you can host on your own private server.
Collaboration in OnlyOffice is highly customizable. You can choose between fast mode (where you see everyone’s edits in real time, like Google Sheets) or strict mode (where you only see others’ changes after they are saved). It also includes a track-changes feature and a built-in chat. These features are useful for remote teams that need to review and approve financial data revisions before they are finalized.
A useful feature for business owners with international collaborations is the built-in translator and a plug-in for the Telegram messaging app. This lets you communicate with global suppliers directly within the spreadsheet interface. OnlyOffice’s mobile apps are consistently rated as some of the best for maintaining the complex composition of Excel file formats. This ensures your structured data looks the same on your phone as it does on your desktop.
Pricing: Free for personal use; business cloud versions start at $30 per user, per month.
Excel alternative FAQ
What is the best alternative to Excel?
The best alternative depends on your specific needs. For real-time collaboration and ease of use, Google Sheets is an industry favorite. For users who need high-powered data analysis without a subscription, LibreOffice Calc is a top contender. If you need to manage complex workflows, Airtable is a strong option.
What are the free versions of Excel and Word?
Microsoft offers Office on the Web, a free version of Excel and Word accessible via your web browser. However, these versions lack many advanced features, like Visual Basic, a Microsoft programming language. For a program with more features that doesn’t require an internet connection, WPS Office or LibreOffice are free alternatives.
What do Apple users use instead of Excel?
Apple users can use Apple Numbers, which is pre-installed on Apple devices. Although it is useful for non-technical users and has visual layouts, Google Sheets continues to be a popular choice for those who need more advanced formulas or better collaboration tools.
