Which Excel Add-ins Are Actually Worth Paying For?

Question 1: Does It Solve a Problem You Have Daily?

An add-in that saves you 2 minutes once a month isn't valuable. One that saves you 30 seconds every hour is worth its weight in gold.

Calculate the actual frequency: How many times per day do you encounter this friction? Once a week? Skip the add-in. Ten times an hour? Worth investigating.

Question 2: Does Excel Already Do This?

Many add-ins replicate features that Excel already has, just buried in menus. Before paying, check if the built-in solution is “good enough.”

Example: Add-ins for “advanced filtering” often just duplicate what Power Query does natively. But date pickers? Excel genuinely doesn't have one.

Question 3: Is It Lightweight or Bloated?

Some add-ins try to do everything and end up slow, crash-prone, and overwhelming. The best add-ins do one thing well.

Warning signs: 100+ toolbar buttons, slow Excel startup, features you'll never use taking up screen space.

Question 4: One-Time or Subscription?

Subscriptions make sense for services that need ongoing maintenance (cloud connections, constantly updated features). For utility tools, one-time purchases are usually better value.

A $50 one-time purchase that works for 5 years = $10/year. A $10/month subscription = $600 over the same period.

Question 5: Does It Have a Real Trial?

Demo videos lie. Screenshots oversimplify. The only way to know if an add-in helps you is to use it on your actual work.

Look for trials that give full functionality for at least 7 days. Avoid trials that require payment info upfront or limit features.

Official Resources

• Manage add-ins — Microsoft add-ins guide
• Add-ins overview — Excel add-ins guide