The short version
Excel is more powerful for large models and offline work; Google Sheets wins on sharing, version history and live data pulls. Either is free and fully yours, and either will quietly break as your life gets more complicated.
Why people compare them
The first real decision anyone makes when they choose to build their own financial model rather than buy one.
Price and fit, side by side
| Feature | A custom Excel spreadsheet | A custom Google Sheet |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | A custom Excel spreadsheetFree tier, then £84.99 per year | A custom Google SheetFree tier, then £5.90 per month |
| Free tier | A custom Excel spreadsheetYes | A custom Google SheetYes |
| Billed in pounds | A custom Excel spreadsheetYes | A custom Google SheetYes |
| Best for | A custom Excel spreadsheetPeople who want total control over every assumption and genuinely enjoy building the model | A custom Google SheetPeople who want to build the model themselves and share it with a partner in real time |
Where A custom Excel spreadsheet wins
- Complete flexibility: if you can define the rule, you can model it, with no vendor deciding what is supported
- No subscription lock-in to a planning vendor, and your file keeps working whatever happens to any company
- Your data never leaves your machine unless you choose to sync it, so nothing is shared with a third party
Where A custom Google Sheet wins
- Free for personal use: anyone with a Google Account can create in Sheets, so the entry cost is genuinely nothing
- Real-time co-editing, which makes it the easiest way for a couple to keep one shared plan rather than two versions
- Version history is built in, so you can see what changed and go back to any earlier state of the plan
Where both fall short
- Neither models UK pensions or answers the retirement question directly.
- Neither applies UK tax rules to what it shows you.
- Both are built US-first, so UK users pay in dollars and work around US assumptions.
If neither is quite right
If what you actually want is the retirement answer rather than a better dashboard, that is the gap Delphina was built for: UK pensions, ISAs and tax, projected to the age you want to stop. It does not do the job A custom Excel spreadsheet does for people who want total control over every assumption and genuinely enjoy building the model, so if that is the real problem, A custom Excel spreadsheet is still the better buy. Free plan is £0, no card.
A custom Excel spreadsheet vs A custom Google Sheet: common questions
A custom Excel spreadsheet is £84.99 per year and A custom Google Sheet is £5.90 per month. Compare the billing period before the number: an annual price and a monthly price are not the same thing.
You can, and some people do, because they solve different halves of the problem. It does mean paying for both, so add the two annual figures together before deciding.
Judge it on billing currency, Open Banking coverage and whether ISAs and pensions are handled. Check each one against those three points, because a tool that scores well elsewhere can still be a poor fit in the UK.
A custom Excel spreadsheet suits people who want total control over every assumption and genuinely enjoy building the model. A custom Google Sheet suits people who want to build the model themselves and share it with a partner in real time. The one that matches how you already think about money will take less setting up.
Delphina covers the gap both leave, which is UK pensions, ISAs and tax projected forward to retirement. The trade-off is that it does not do the job A custom Excel spreadsheet does for people who want total control over every assumption and genuinely enjoy building the model, so if that is the real need, pick one of these two.