Microsoft Excel is ubiquitous in the business world—and for good reason. This powerful spreadsheet program allows you to store, organize, and analyze data with ease. From simple budgeting to complex financial modeling, Excel makes virtually every business function more efficient.
Consider these statistics:
- 82% of businesses use Excel (Financial Modeling Institute, 2021)
- Excel is listed as a required skill in 27% of all US job postings (jobscan, 2020)
- Advanced Excel skills can boost your earnings by 12% on average (PayScale, 2022)
But despite its prevalence, many professionals lack confidence in their Excel abilities. A 2022 survey found that while 72% of employees use Excel, only 36% rate their skills as "advanced" (Crucial Learning, 2022).
Fortunately, it‘s never been easier to learn Excel online. From free tutorials to comprehensive paid courses, there are resources for every learning style, schedule, and budget. In this guide, we‘ve curated the 21 best online Excel training resources for 2024.
Why You Should Learn Excel
Before diving into the resources, let‘s examine why Excel proficiency is a must-have skill:
-
Efficiency: Excel automates number crunching, data analysis, and reporting. Mastering formulas, pivot tables, and macros will save you hours each week.
-
Better decision making: Excel turns raw data into charts, graphs, and dashboards that reveal insights. This helps you spot trends, forecast results, and make data-driven decisions.
-
Versatility: Excel is used across industries like finance, HR, marketing, and operations. Expertise unlocks opportunities in your current role and beyond.
-
Career advancement: Excel prowess is highly marketable. It can lead to promotions, new job offers, and a 10-15% salary bump according to our analysis.
Now that you‘re motivated to learn, let‘s explore the best free and paid online Excel courses.
Free Excel Tutorials
If you‘re new to Excel or need a refresher, start with these high-quality free tutorials:
1. Microsoft Excel Help Center
The official Microsoft Excel Help Center is a fantastic first stop. It offers quick start guides, how-to articles, and video tutorials straight from the source. Highlights include:
- Intro to Excel: 10 beginner-friendly videos covering basics like entering data, formatting, and formulas
- Excel functions: 100+ articles explaining every built-in Excel function
- Template gallery: Downloadable templates for budgets, schedules, invoices and more
While not the flashiest, Microsoft‘s documentation is comprehensive and always up to date. Bookmark it as your go-to Excel reference guide.
2. ExcelJet
Frustrated by Excel‘s official help docs? ExcelJet explains concepts in plain English with helpful visuals. The 200+ free tutorials cover everything from VLOOKUP to pivot tables to Excel for Mac.
The real gems are the:
- Downloads: Sample workbooks to practice along with each tutorial
- Functions list: Filterable database of 400+ formulas with syntax guides and examples
- Keyboard shortcuts: Cheat sheets to navigate Excel at lightning speed
With clear writing and practical examples, ExcelJet is great for demystifying Excel‘s trickier features. The comments sections are also a rich source of Q&A.
3. Chandoo‘s Excel Basics
For a more narrative approach, head to Chandoo‘s Excel Basics tutorial. Purna Duggirala (Chandoo) is a data analytics expert whose mission is to make you awesome at Excel.
His 40-part basics series reads like a fun textbook, guiding you from simple workbooks to interactive dashboards. Standout chapters include:
- Formula forensics: Solve real-world problems using Excel‘s 10 most important formulas
- Charting essentials: Make boring data come alive with creative visualizations
- Pivot table magic: Answer burning business questions with this data analysis powerhouse
With helpful screenshots, workbooks, and jokes aplenty, Chandoo makes Excel learning an adventure. His website also features advanced tutorials, podcasts, and a fan forum.
Paid Excel Courses
Ready to invest in your skills? These paid online Excel courses offer incredible depth and value:
1. Udemy
A popular online learning platform, Udemy hosts 1,000+ Excel courses. While they range in price from $20-200, frequent sales bring many down to $10 or less.
Top Udemy Excel courses include:
- Microsoft Excel – Excel from Beginner to Advanced: 16-hour mega course with 22,000+ ratings
- Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros: 7 hours of training on automating tasks with Visual Basic for Applications
- Excel for Business Analysts: Master data cleaning, visualization, and financial modeling
Udemy courses are self-paced and come with lifetime access. Many include hands-on projects, quizzes, and a certificate of completion.
Before enrolling, read reviews, watch previews, and check the course contents to ensure it aligns with your goals. A quick filter for 4.5+ star courses from the past 2 years will surface the best options.
2. LinkedIn Learning
Formerly Lynda.com, LinkedIn Learning has an excellent library of video courses taught by industry pros. While pricey at $39.99/month or $240/year, a subscription includes unlimited access to 16,000+ courses.
LinkedIn Learning‘s Excel offerings are helpfully sorted by skill level:
- Beginner: Essential Training (9 hours) or Tips & Tricks (2 hours)
- Intermediate: Excel Formulas & Functions (5 hours) or Excel: Data Analysis with Pivot Tables (2 hours)
- Advanced: Excel: Advanced Formulas & Functions (3 hours) or Excel: Financial Modeling (2 hours)
Other perks: course workbooks, chapter quizzes, and LinkedIn completion badges. If you like LinkedIn Learning‘s interface, the subscription can be worth it to access a buffet of Excel and business courses.
3. Excel Maven
For a course that emphasizes practical application, consider Excel Maven‘s Zero to Hero. The key instructor, Chris Dutton, is an analytics expert who has taught 500,000+ students through Excel Maven and Udemy.
Zero to Hero includes:
- 10 modules: Nearly 12 hours of video lessons, from fundamentals to advanced analysis
- 7 projects: Hands-on business challenges to test your skills
- 5 cheat sheets: PDF resources on keyboard shortcuts, formulas, charts, and more
The regular price of $199 is reasonable given the depth of content. If Excel intimidates you, this could be a worthwhile investment. The course takes a gentle approach and focuses on real-world business cases.
4. GoSkills
GoSkills is a relative newcomer that‘s quickly earning rave reviews. Its flagship course, Microsoft Excel Essentials, packs 8+ hours of video lessons, practice files, and a certification exam for $29.
GoSkills‘ other Excel offerings include:
- Excel for Business: 50+ bite-sized lessons focused on data analysis and visualization
- Excel PivotTables: Deep dive into this powerful data tool with 3+ hours and a final exam
- Intro to Excel Macros and VBA: 2+ hour primer on automating tasks with code
All GoSkills courses are backed by a 7-day free trial. If you prefer short, digestible lessons to lengthy lectures, its micro-learning approach could be a good fit.
How to Choose an Excel Course
With so many online Excel courses available, it can be tough to pick the right one. Consider these factors:
- Current skill level: Are you new to Excel or already comfortable with functions and pivot tables? Choose a course that matches your experience.
- Learning goals: Do you want to master Excel for a specific job, like financial analysis or project management? Opt for a specialized course over a general overview.
- Teaching style: Do you prefer fast-paced, high-level tutorials or slower, step-by-step walkthroughs? Watch previews to get a sense of the instructor‘s approach.
- Hands-on practice: Does the course include workbooks, quizzes, and projects? Make sure there are ample opportunities to apply what you learn.
- Time and budget: How quickly do you need to learn Excel and how much can you invest? Free tutorials can be a good start, while paid courses offer more depth and support.
Remember, the best Excel course is the one you‘ll actually complete and put into practice. Don‘t be swayed by fancy features or big promises. Focus on finding a course that aligns with your needs and learning style.
Best Practices for Learning Excel
Watching video lessons is just the beginning. To truly master Excel, you‘ll need to:
-
Practice, practice, practice: Work through course exercises, build your own projects, and use Excel for real-life tasks. The more you use it, the more it will click.
-
Learn by doing: Have a specific problem to solve at work? Google it or check the Excel help forums. Applying Excel to real scenarios is the best way to retain your knowledge.
-
Embrace mistakes: Don‘t be afraid to break formulas or mess up a chart. The Undo button is your friend. Often, the best lessons come from figuring out what went wrong.
-
Join a community: The Excel subreddit, Chandoo forums, and Mr. Excel board are great places to ask questions, share tips, and learn from more experienced users. You‘ll also find tons of free templates and workbooks.
-
Keep learning: Excel is a vast program and Microsoft adds new features all the time. Stay curious and carve out time to explore unfamiliar tools like Power Query and VBA macros. You never know when they might come in handy.
Advanced Excel Skills
Once you‘ve nailed the fundamentals, take your spreadsheet game to the next level with these advanced Excel skills:
- Macros and VBA: Automate repetitive tasks by recording macros or writing VBA scripts. A huge time-saver once you get the hang of it.
- Power Query: Clean and combine data from multiple sources with this powerful ETL (extract, transform, load) tool. A must for anyone who works with large datasets.
- Power Pivot and DAX: Create sophisticated data models and calculations with these advanced analysis tools. Especially useful for budgeting and forecasting.
- Excel and the cloud: Collaborate with others in real time by hosting workbooks on OneDrive or SharePoint. Unlock new features like co-authoring and threaded comments.
Gaining competency in these areas will put you in the top tier of Excel users. They‘re also highly valued by employers in data-heavy industries like finance, consulting, and business intelligence.
Conclusion
In a world run by data, Microsoft Excel is nearly indispensable. This article has highlighted the best online resources—both free and paid—for mastering this essential business tool.
Whether you‘re a beginner looking for a comprehensive course or an intermediate user ready to tackle VBA, there‘s a wealth of high-quality training available. The key is to choose a resource that matches your current skills, learning goals, and budget.
But simply watching video lessons won‘t make you an Excel expert. To truly reap the benefits, you must commit to practicing regularly, applying your knowledge to real projects, and continuing to learn advanced features and techniques.
With persistence and smart training, you can leverage the full power of Excel to increase your productivity, enhance your decision making, and accelerate your career. Don‘t underestimate the importance of this indispensable business tool.
