Expensely vs Excel: which is right for you?
Comparison pages on the internet have a problem: they're written by the company being compared, and they always conclude that the writer is the best choice. This is also a comparison page written by Expensely, so it has the same bias. We've tried to compensate by being specific about who should pick Excel and being honest about the trade-offs. If at the end of this page you decide Excel is right for you — that's a fine outcome. Both tools are professionally built; the right call depends on your specific job.
Who Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets is
Spreadsheets are the universal default. Around 70% of small businesses still track expenses in Excel or Google Sheets, often in a sheet that was started by one person and accreted complexity over years. Spreadsheets are free (or near-free), infinitely flexible, and require zero vendor commitment. They are also, eventually, the bottleneck — and most people don’t notice until it’s painful.
Best-for callout
Pick Expensely if: you have receipts piling up, multiple people entering expenses, multi-currency, or you spend more than 15 minutes a week wrestling the sheet. The moment you say "next weekend I’ll clean it up" three weekends in a row, the spreadsheet has lost.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Expensely | Excel |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $0 (Free), $4.99 (Solo) | $0 (Sheets), $7 (Excel) |
| Receipt OCR | ✓ | — |
| Voice entry | ✓ | — |
| Auto-categorisation | ✓ | Manual |
| AI anomaly detection | ✓ | — |
| Burn-rate forecasts | ✓ | Manual formula |
| Multi-currency w/ live FX | ✓ | Manual / add-on |
| Mobile entry | ✓ optimised | Awful |
| Roles & approvals | ✓ on Team | DIY |
| Audit log | ✓ | — |
| Backup / recovery | ✓ | Self-managed |
| Setup time | < 60 sec | Hours |
| Flexibility | Opinionated | Infinite |
Pricing
Excel/Sheets is effectively free. Expensely Free is also free. Expensely Solo is $4.99/mo — about 1–2 hours of saved time per month covers the cost, in most users’ experience.
See our full pricing page for the breakdown.
Honest pros of Excel
- Free or nearly free.
- Infinitely flexible — you can model anything.
- No vendor lock-in.
- Everyone already knows how to use it.
- Works offline.
- Easy to share or hand to an accountant.
What Expensely does better
- OCR — the spreadsheet cannot read your receipts.
- Voice entry — the spreadsheet can’t hear you.
- AI insights — your sheet shows totals, not anomalies.
- Auto-categorisation — no more "where do I put this?"
- Multi-currency with live FX — no manual conversion.
- Mobile-first — entering an expense on your phone in a spreadsheet is awful.
- Roles, approvals, audit log — for teams.
- Backups, encryption, recovery — your sheet has none of these unless you build them.
Migrating from Excel
Export your spreadsheet as CSV (Excel: File → Save As → CSV; Sheets: File → Download → CSV). Import to Expensely. We auto-detect columns (Date, Vendor, Amount, Currency, Category, Notes). You confirm in one click. Most spreadsheet histories import cleanly in under five minutes. If your sheet is structurally messy (merged cells, comments-as-data), Team plan customers get a white-glove migration.
Other comparisons
Try Expensely free
Free plan is permanent. Photograph a receipt, log a voice transaction, run an AI insight on a month of data. If it's not for you, you owe us nothing.
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