The expression, “work smarter, not harder,” is something that applies to Microsoft Excel in spades. Excel is known as one of the most widely used and robust business productivity tools, and there is a lot to learn about this program. It’s no wonder that users sometimes need a helping hand.
Whether you are brand new to Excel, a student with a complex problem, or a business that is working with complicated spreadsheets and analytics tools, the good news is that you have choices among the providers who can offer some assistance.
But, are they all the same? That is the question that we’re going to attempt to answer today with this detailed look at the primary sources of help for Excel. The truth is, if you need assistance or troubleshooting with Excel, some resources will provide a better response than others and help you get your issue resolved faster and correctly.
Here is a look at the best Excel help services so that you can choose which one is right for your needs.
| Name | Description | Year Est. | Catalog of Available Solutions | Website Last Updated | Resources Access | Help | Score |
| Excelchat | Excelchat offers on-demand help in Excel through a combination of AI and knowledgeable experts. The site delivers a ready-made library of thousands of Excel solutions that are simple to locate – from the common to the obscure, with new information added daily. | 2018 | More than 1,000 | Within the past month | Yes | Live Help |   |
| Mr. Excel | MrExcel.com is a website and message board that has been online for over 20 years. The site provides examples of functions, formulas, and VB procedures. | 1998 | More than 1,000 | Within the past month | Yes | Forum Help | |
| Excel Tip | Excel Tip is an online extension of the larger Excel Forum. Its aim is to provide tutorials and tips on using various functions in Excel. | 2013 | Less than 1,000 | Within the past 6 months | Yes | Forum Help | |
| Excel Easy | Excel Easy provides online tutorials on a wide variety of Excel functions. There are over 300 examples, divided into chapters, on the website. While the help on the website is free, there is no specialized help available and a lack of frequent updates. | 2010 | Less than 500 | Within the past 6 months | Yes | Email Help | |
| ExcelJet | Exceljet is an online resource for learning and troubleshooting Excel. It was created and is run by a husband and wife team who produce videos and other narratives as tutorials. | 2012 | Less than 1,000 | Within the past 6 months | Yes | No Help | |
| Code Mentor | Code Mentor is an online marketplace where users have access to a variety of Excel developers, engineers, tutors, and consultants. A person can not only get help with a problem in Excel but can also hire someone to create an entire project or put together custom training or coaching. | 2013 | Less than 500 | Within the past month | No | Live Help | |
| Computer Hope | Computer Hope is a twenty-year-old website that provides free computer help on a variety of topics, Excel included. The site provides some basic information on using Excel, including shortcuts and common questions. | 1998 | Less than 500 | Over 6 months ago | Yes | Forum Help | |
| Excel Functions & Formulas | ExcelFunctions.net is a long-standing website that provides some free tutorials on the use of most versions of Excel. It has a list of “popular searches” as well as categories of articles on Excel. | 2008 | Less than 500 | Over 6 months ago | Yes | No Help | |
| Excel Solver | Excel Solver is part of Frontline Systems, Inc., which a company that provides Excel analytics software. On the surface, it appears that there is some help with Excel available, but it is limited. | 1990 | Less than 500 | Over 6 months ago | Yes | No Help | |
| Excel Help | Excel Help is a provider of assistance services to corporate and individual clients. It offers a variety of solutions that promise to reduce the time spent dealing with errors and other issues in Excel. | 2006 | Less than 500 | Over 6 months ago | No | No Help | |
| Get Excel Help | Get Excel Help is a major provider of Excel training and troubleshooting services for corporate clients. It doesn’t provide free help or tutorials on its website, but instead invites businesses to contact the company for pricing on Excel training, programming, and consulting services. | 2005 | Less than 500 | Over 6 months ago | No | No Help | |
Here is a broader overview of each of these services:
Excelchat (Got-It)
Excelchat offers on-demand help in Excel through a combination of AI and experts. The site delivers a ready-made library of thousands of Excel solutions that are simple to locate — from the common to the obscure, with new information added daily. When AI doesn’t solve an issue, there are thousands of experts standing by who will do so through live chat.
Excelchat is unique among its competitors in that it delivers live one-on-one help for individual problems in Excel. Excelchat has a community of more than 10,000 experts on hand to answer user questions and troubleshoot problems until they are resolved.
Whether a user is just learning to navigate Excel or needs help with troubleshooting a particular issue, there is specialized assistance available. If there is a not a solution possible on the site through a simple search or if time is of the essence, the user has the option to use the live chat feature. The first Excelchat live help service is always free.
For more frequent users, there are tiered pricing models to achieve the best value. Both individuals as well as professional users who work at major companies such as Dell, Amazon, Facebook, UPS, and Allstate trust this resource.
Excel Easy
Excel Easy provides online tutorials on a wide variety of Excel functions. There are over 300 examples, divided into chapters, on the website. While the help on the website is free, there is no specialized help available and a lack of frequent updates. If a user has a particular issue that they need to troubleshoot, there may not be enough resources available here to solve it.
Excel Help
Excel Help is a provider of assistance services to corporate and individual clients. It offers a variety of solutions that promise to reduce the time spent dealing with errors and other issues in Excel. The company offers on-demand support with Excel, but it’s not “Live” help. It does have a support portal for customers to enter issues into, and then receive responses.
Excel help has the capacity to assist small to large clients and offers a 30-day “Bug-Free Guarantee” on all of its project work. However, its training and support services are more geared towards corporate clients. Some of its clients include HP, Red Bull, Revlon, Adobe, and American Express.
Anyone who needs help with a quick fix or some occasional troubleshooting might find themselves priced out of using this service. There is also a lack of free training and resources available with this provider.
Get Excel Help
Get Excel Help is a major provider of Excel training and troubleshooting services for corporate clients. It doesn’t provide free help or tutorials on its website, but instead invites businesses to contact the company for pricing on Excel training, programming, and consulting services.
Anyone looking for some free Excel tips can check out the company’s blog. There are about 30 articles available, with the last one posted almost a year ago.
Excel Help isn’t likely to be the best choice for an individual looking for assistance. It’s unclear how much they work with small businesses. Some of the corporate clients the company advertises having worked with include GE, Amgen, LinkedIn, and IBM.
Mr. Excel
MrExcel.com is a website and message board that has been online for over 20 years. The site provides examples of functions, formulas, and VB procedures. The site’s author has written books on Excel, is a paid speaker, and provides consulting services.
Users can search the site to find a solution to problems from a vast library of resources. There is not, however, live help available on the site. The only form of personalized help comes from responses on the message board.
Excel Tip
Excel Tip is an online extension of the larger Excel Forum. It aims to provide tutorials and tips on using various functions in Excel. There are some detailed explanations on the website, but some of the images no longer work, which can make following the narrative difficult. The site invites users to email them with questions, but there hasn’t been an update posted in several years.
Excel Solver
Excel Solver is part of Frontline Systems, Inc., which a company that provides Excel analytics software. On the surface, it appears that there is some help with Excel available, but it is limited. There are a web ebook and Excel add-on that are available for purchase; these provide some example models and what-if tools.
Users can register with the site for access to some basic PDF Excel user guides. There is also a free trial for the analytics services. While there is a button for a “Live Chat,” the person who responds says that this is “only available to support the Analytic Solver Platform,” not to answer Excel-related questions.
Excel Functions and Formulas:
ExcelFunctions.net is a long-standing website that provides some free tutorials on the use of most versions of Excel. It has a list of “popular searches” as well as categories of articles on Excel. While the information on the site is free to use, it may not be enough to solve or troubleshoot a particular problem in the program. There are no options to request individual help, either through email or live chat. There are no testimonials available, and the website has not been updated since last year.
ExcelJet
ExcelJet is an online resource for learning and troubleshooting Excel. It was created and is run by a husband and wife team who produce videos and other narratives as tutorials. There are over 500 Excel formula examples, 222 shortcuts for Windows and Mac, and other resources for using the program. The site does not have one-on-one help but does offer paid training.
Its paid products are online video training modules that cover various topics in Excel. Again, this isn’t personalized help with an Excel issue. While ExcelJet does get positive feedback from users, it may not be the right choice if a person needs time-sensitive or ongoing help to troubleshoot issues in Excel.
Code Mentor
Code Mentor is an online marketplace where users have access to a variety of Excel developers, engineers, tutors, and consultants. A person can not only get help with a problem in Excel but can also hire someone to create an entire project or put together custom training or coaching.
When using Code Mentor, a user will first have to find someone that they’d like to hire to assist them with their problem. (There aren’t any free Excel resources on the site.)
A search can be made for experts based on price, areas of expertise, or reviews from prior users. The site does offer a live session feature so that the session takes place in real time. Users will be charged by the amount of time it takes to resolve their issue.
Computer Hope
Computer Hope is a twenty-year-old website that provides free computer help on a variety of topics, Excel included. The site provides some basic information on using Excel, including shortcuts and common questions. However, the tutorials provided are for beginner users. There is no personalized help available from Computer Hope, and the last update to the Excel section of the site was in May 2018.
Are You Looking for Personalized and Fast Excel Help?
The type of provider you choose will depend on your particular needs with Excel. If you have a simple troubleshooting issue, several of the websites listed could help you. If you need customization, have a more complex issue, or are under time constraints, it might make sense to choose a company that offers personalized assistance in real-time.
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