We ship most of our templates in both Google Sheets and Excel, and people regularly ask why. Here’s the honest breakdown.
Where Google Sheets wins
- Zero setup. No software to buy, no license to manage. If you have a browser, you have it — which is why roughly 70% of template buyers prefer Sheets.
- Sharing is native. Send a link, your partner or VA edits the same file. No email attachments, no version chaos.
- Always backed up. Close the tab mid-edit and nothing is lost.
- Formulas are 90% identical. SUMIF, IF, VLOOKUP, QUERY — if you can write it in Excel you can almost always write it in Sheets.
Where Excel wins
- Offline and fast on huge files. Past ~50k rows with heavy formulas, Sheets starts to lag; Excel doesn’t blink.
- Advanced formatting and printing. Print-ready layouts, precise page control.
- No Google account required. Some customers (and some companies) simply won’t use Google Workspace — an .xlsx file just opens.
Where they’re identical
For the use cases our templates cover — budgets, invoices, calendars, trackers — the experience is effectively the same. The formulas, charts and formatting behave identically because we build and test both versions.
So which should you choose?
| Your situation | Pick |
|---|---|
| Personal use, any device, no software budget | Google Sheets |
| Sharing with a partner, VA or small team | Google Sheets |
| Big data (10k+ rows) or offline work | Excel |
| Client-facing documents you print or PDF | Excel |
| Not sure / want both | Our “Sheets + Excel” products include both files |
If a product page says Google Sheets only, it’s because the template is built around browser-native features (drag-friendly grids, link sharing) that don’t translate to .xlsx cleanly. Everything else ships in both.
The best template is the one you’ll open. Choose the format you already live in — switching later takes five minutes.