Although Microsoft Excel's default functions meet the needs of most professionals, perhaps you could still benefit from occasional enhancements. Here is where Excel add-ins come into play. These little plugins can unlock your hidden potential and transform the way you work. Whether you are a casual Excel user or a seasoned pro, check out the top Excel add-ins to take your skills to the next level.

You don’t need to download every mentioned add-in on the list, of course. Select ones depending on your specific needs and workflow. Most paid plugins come with a free trial, so make sure to take advantage of this to see which ones maximize your Excel productivity.

What is an Excel add-in?

Before I get into the top Excel add-ins, let’s have a quick word about them. Excel plugins are small programs that you can install to enhance Excel’s functionality. They offer additional features, tools, commands and can offer huge time-saving for Excel power users.

How to find and download Excel plugins

Microsoft offers a dedicated add-in store on Excel. You can download and set up each add-in within your Excel account using the steps below.

1. Open any workbook in Microsoft Excel. Go to the Home tab.
2. Select Add-ins and search for one that you want to download.
3. Click Add beside an add-in.
4. You can even click on the add-in to open additional information and select Add from the same menu.
5. Agree to the terms and conditions, and your add-in will be ready to use from the sidebar.

Here are some of our favorites to help get you started!

15 ChartExpo

While Excel comes with a range of chart options, they can be limiting in certain use cases. Here is where ChartExpo comes into play. It unlocks a wide array of chart types, such as Sankey diagrams, Marimekko charts, Gauge charts, Likert Scale charts, and many more. You can also customize them with various colors, fonts, labels, and other visual elements.

14 Draw.io

Draw.io plugin for Excel offers a seamless way to embed flowcharts, UML, mockups, mind maps, and other types of diagrams in your workbook. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to simplify the diagram customization. As for flexibility, you can import existing diagrams from various formats and export your creations in different formats.

Whether you're a business analyst, project manager, software developer, or simply someone who wants to communicate information visually, Draw.io can be an excellent tool to enhance your workflow.

13 ChatGPT for Excel

Powered by the latest AI models, ChatGPT unlocks the trendy AI bot in your Excel. If you don’t prefer Microsoft Copilot, you can give this a try. It can get you relevant questions and answers, create AI-powered tables, translate content, format your data for better consistency, extract valuable information, and even clean your data and fill in missing ranges.

12 Jira Cloud for Excel

If you or your organization uses Jira to manage projects, this official add-in from Atlassian (the parent company of Jira) is a must-have for you. You can seamlessly import your Jira reports and use Excel pivot tables and interactive dashboards to create custom reports and charts to review pressing data quickly. You can also schedule reports that make weekly reporting a breeze.

This add-in does require a Jira cloud subscription.

11 Stock Connector

As the name suggests, Stock Connector lets you track prices of stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, and crypto directly within your spreadsheets. The add-in extracts relevant data from reliable sources, making sure you have access to accurate information for US and international markets. It automatically updates the stock prices, and you can choose to see the latest price or how much the stock has moved throughout the day.

The add-in is free to use. But with an optional donation, you can unlock more features like real-time price updates. It’s a handy Excel plugin for anyone who wants to track their investments or create detailed financial models in Excel.

10 People Graph

Does your workflow require a people graph style for your data? Since Excel doesn’t support such graphs by default, you need to rely on third-party add-ins like People Graph to get the job done. With a single click, you can insert a people graph to display your data and tell the story in a unique way.

9 Lucidchart

If you don’t prefer the Draw.io plugin, go with Lucidchart to insert flowcharts, mind maps, and other diagramming solutions into your Excel workbook. Such charts simplify complexity, align your team’s insights, and improve clarity among collaborators. The company offers multiple options to create stunning charts and lets you refresh them with just a single click. The company also has separate extensions for other Microsoft 365 apps, including Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint.

8 Supermetrics

Supermetrics is a must-have plugin for your marketing and sales department. It lets you pull data from 100+ tools into your Excel spreadsheets in minutes. Whether you want to analyze advertising spends on Meta, campaign performance, or website metrics, you can simply use Supermetrics to pull data into your Excel sheet.

It offers automation to pull data weekly, daily, or monthly, a reporting template to get started with your data quickly, AI reporting, and more. The add-in supports Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Azure Synapse, Apple Search, Quora, TikTok, X, and many other ads.

7 Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is one of the most frequently used Excel plugins in my workflow. When you first install it, sign in with your Adobe account and get ready to upload your Excel workbooks with just a single click. You can upload your Excel sheet as a PDF, add a password if required, and make it available on all your devices via Adobe Document Cloud. You no longer need to save and upload it somewhere separately.

6 Vertex42 Template Gallery

Though Microsoft Excel offers an extensive library of templates in various categories, some users may still find it difficult to pick a suitable one. Instead of browsing the web or third-party e-commerce platforms like Etsy for Excel templates, you can simply download the Vertex42 plugin and unlock 300+ templates for your workflow.

These templates are divided into multiple categories such as invoices, inventory, project management, calendar, planner, and more.