Top 10 Excel Formulas Every Beginner Should Learn
New to Excel or Google Sheets? Start with these essential formulas. They’ll cover 80% of what you’ll do day to day—adding numbers, finding averages, creating conditional logic, and looking up values across tables.
Tip: You can generate any of these automatically on our homepage—type your request in plain English and get a formula with an explanation.
1) SUM — Add Numbers Quickly
Returns the total of a range of numbers.
=SUM(A2:A10)Example: Add all sales from A2:A10.
Common mistake: Using commas instead of a colon for ranges. Use
A2:A10, not A2,A10 (unless you mean two separate cells).2) AVERAGE — Find the Mean
=AVERAGE(B2:B100)Ignores blank cells automatically.
3) COUNT / COUNTA — Count Cells
COUNT(range): counts numeric cellsCOUNTA(range): counts non-empty cells (text, numbers, dates)
=COUNT(C2:C100)
=COUNTA(C2:C100)4) MIN / MAX — Smallest or Largest
=MIN(D2:D100)
=MAX(D2:D100)Great for quick stats—lowest/highest price, score, or time.
5) IF — Basic Conditional Logic
Returns one value if a condition is true, and another if false.
=IF(E2>=70, "Pass", "Fail")Also try:
IFS for multiple conditions, or nest multiple IFs.6) SUMIF / SUMIFS — Conditional Sum
SUMIF(range, criteria, sum_range)— one conditionSUMIFS(sum_range, criteria_range1, criteria1, ...)— multiple conditions
=SUMIF(B2:B100, "North", C2:C100)
=SUMIFS(C2:C100, B2:B100, "North", D2:D100, "Q1")Common mistake: In
SUMIF, the first range is the criteria range, and the third is the sum range.7) COUNTIF / COUNTIFS — Conditional Count
=COUNTIF(A2:A100, ">1000")
=COUNTIFS(B2:B100, "North", D2:D100, "Q1")Use quotes around operators like ">=100".
8) VLOOKUP (and Why XLOOKUP Is Better)
VLOOKUP finds a value in the first column of a table and returns a value from a specified column to the right.
=VLOOKUP(F2, A2:D100, 3, FALSE)Prefer:
XLOOKUP where available (Excel 365 / Google Sheets alternative is LOOKUP or combinations)=XLOOKUP(F2, A2:A100, C2:C100, "Not found")Common mistake: With
VLOOKUP the lookup column must be the left-most in your table array.9) TEXT — Format Numbers/Dates as Text
=TEXT(G2, "₹#,##0")
=TEXT(H2, "dd-mmm-yyyy")Useful for clean reports or combining values into readable strings.
10) LEFT, RIGHT, MID — Extract Text
=LEFT(A2, 3) // first 3 characters
=RIGHT(A2, 4) // last 4 characters
=MID(A2, 2, 5) // 5 characters starting at position 2Combine with:
FIND or SEARCH to locate delimiters like spaces or dashes.Bonus: Dynamic Array Helpers (Excel 365 / Google Sheets)
UNIQUE(range)— list unique itemsFILTER(range, condition)— filter rows by conditionSEQUENCE(rows, [columns], [start], [step])— generate numbers
=UNIQUE(B2:B100)
=FILTER(A2:D100, B2:B100="North")
=SEQUENCE(12,1,1,1)Quick Tips to Avoid Errors
- Use absolute references (
$A$2) when copying formulas that must lock a cell/range. - Wrap text criteria in quotes:
"North",">1000". - Check your separators: Excel uses commas (,) in most locales; some use semicolons (;).
- For Google Sheets parity: almost all examples above work the same.