VLOOKUP. Pivot tables. Conditional formatting. Remove duplicates. RANK. Every one of those used to mean a Google search, a YouTube tutorial, and a formula that still came back #N/A.

Now Claude sits right inside Excel. You type what you want in plain English, and it writes the formula, fixes the error, builds the chart, or answers the question, in your actual workbook. Below: what you need, how to set it up, what it looks like, what to ask it, and a full example built from a blank sheet.

BEFORE fx =VLOOKUP(A2,Payments!$A:$D,4,FALSE) clientlast paid bayside co#N/A north studio#N/A twenty minutes of googling later... AFTER "Add each client's last payment date from the Payments tab." clientlast paid bayside coSep 28 north studioOct 2
Same task. One of these took a sentence.

1. Get Claude

You need a Claude account, that's it. Go to claude.ai and sign up with your email or Google account. If you want Claude on your computer outside of Excel too, you can download the desktop app from claude.com/download, but the Excel add-in doesn't need it. It signs in with the same account.

If you're brand new to Claude, start with the full setup guide and come back. Ten minutes there makes everything below work better.

2. What plan you need

Claude in Excel works on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise. It is not on the free plan. Pro is the lowest plan that includes it, and it uses the same usage limits as the rest of your Claude account.

Free not included Pro start here Max more usage Team your company Enterprise admin installs it
Any paid Claude plan works. Free does not.

You also need a version of Excel that supports it: Excel on the web, Excel on Windows with Microsoft 365, or Excel on Mac (recent versions). It does not run on the iPad or Android Excel apps, or on old boxed versions like Excel 2016 and 2019.

On a work computer? Your IT admin may need to approve or install the add-in for you. If you can't find it in step 3, that's usually why.

3. Get it into Excel

It's an official add-in from Anthropic, and it takes about two minutes.

1 Find the listing "Claude for Microsoft 365" on Microsoft AppSource 2 Get it now Install it to your Microsoft account 3 Open it in Excel Add-ins, then Claude, then sign in
Listing, install, open. You only do this once.

Search Microsoft AppSource for Claude for Microsoft 365 and select Get it now. Then open Excel and find the add-in: on Windows it's under Home, Add-ins, on a Mac it's under Tools, Add-ins, and on the web it's on the Home tab under Add-ins. Click Claude and sign in with the account from step 1.

That's it. Next time you open Excel, it's already there.

4. What it looks like

Claude opens as a panel on the right side of your spreadsheet. Your sheet stays exactly where it is. You type in the panel, and the changes happen in the cells next to it.

invoices.xlsx fx =IF(TODAY()-C2>30,"late","") A invoiceB clientC sentD status 1042Bayside CoAug 20late 1043North StudioSep 15 1044Elm & OakAug 29late 1045Bayside CoOct 1 1046Rivera GroupSep 30 Claude Flag every invoice over 30 days old. Done. I added a status column that marks anything sent 30+ days ago as late. D2:D6 Ask Claude about this sheet...
Your sheet on the left, Claude on the right. The blue box is what it just changed.

5. How to use it

Talk to it like the person who built the spreadsheet. You don't need the function name. Say what you want to see, which tab it lives on, and what "done" looks like. The more specific you are, the less you'll redo.

Here are the five I'd start with. Open any spreadsheet you already use and try one.

Add each client's last payment date from the Payments tab.
Flag every invoice that's more than 30 days old, and highlight those rows in light red.
Find the source of the #REF! error on the Summary tab and fix it.
Make a chart of revenue by month and highlight the best month.
Walk me through how the number in C42 is calculated, step by step.
Remember: ask for the result, not the formula. "Show me who pays late" beats "write me an AVERAGEIFS."

6. What it can do

Basically everything you used to Google.

  • Write formulas from a plain-English sentence, and explain any formula you didn't write.
  • Fix errors like #REF!, #N/A, and #DIV/0!, and tell you what caused them.
  • Do the Excel chores: pivot tables, sorting, filtering, conditional formatting, and dropdown lists.
  • Build charts from your data.
  • Change an assumption (a price, a rate, a date) and keep every formula that depends on it working.
  • Work across tabs in the same workbook.
  • Build something new from a description, or fill in a template you already have.

What it won't do: macros and VBA, and Excel's "data tables" feature. Everything else, ask.

7. How to check its work

Every answer points to the exact cells it used. When Claude tells you something about your spreadsheet, it shows the cell or range, like Payments!C2:F48. Click it and Excel jumps straight there. You never have to take its word for it.

Which clients usually pay late, and by how much? Three clients average more than 14 days late. The longest delays are on invoices sent in August. Payments!C2:F48 click to jump to those cells
The blue tag is a link. Click it and check the numbers yourself.

Two more safety nets: it warns you before it overwrites data that's already there, and it asks you to confirm before anything risky. Read those prompts. Don't just click yes.

Use it on spreadsheets you trust. Files from strangers (downloaded templates, vendor exports) can hide instructions meant to trick an AI. Work on your own files, and keep a copy before big changes.

8. Build one with me: a budget tracker from a blank sheet

Open a blank workbook and do this in order. Each prompt builds on the last one, the same way you'd hand off a project in pieces.

First, the structure.

Build me a monthly family budget tracker. Columns: date, description, category, amount. Add a second tab with a monthly budget for each category: groceries, kids, house, eating out, subscriptions, other.

Then, make it easy to fill in.

Make the category column a dropdown that uses the categories from the budget tab.

Then, make it tell you something.

Add a summary on the budget tab: spent so far, budget, and amount left for each category. Turn the amount left red if it goes negative.

Then, make it visual.

Add a bar chart of spent vs budget by category.
October budget categoryspentbudgetleft groceries$612$800$188 kids$240$300$60 eating out$318$250 -$68 subscriptions$94$120$26 eating out dropdown pulls from the budget tab grocerieskidseating outsubs spent budget
Four prompts, one blank sheet. Example numbers, but this is what you end up with.

Four sentences and you have a tracker with a dropdown, a running total, a red warning when you go over, and a chart. Then keep going: "add a tab that compares this month to last month," or "which category am I most over on, on average?" That's the real shift. You stop building the spreadsheet and start asking it questions.

What to notice

  • Ask for the outcome, not the function. You describe it, it picks the formula.
  • Build in small steps. One prompt per piece is easier to check than one giant ask.
  • Click the cell links. Checking takes two seconds, and it's how you stay the one in charge.
  • Keep a copy first. Especially before it edits a sheet other people rely on.
You don't need to know Excel anymore. You just need to know what you want from it.

Open the spreadsheet you've been avoiding and ask it one question tonight. And if your answers ever come back generic, the fix is almost always in how you ask, which is exactly what prompts that actually work walks through.