Free Online Excel Courses
- 7 courses
- 7 free
- 1 with a free certificate
Sources: Alison, Udemy, Microsoft · Verified
A free Excel course usually starts with the workbook itself: entering and formatting data, writing formulas, using absolute and relative references, and building the first lookup and conditional functions. Stronger courses move on to PivotTables, charts, data cleaning and what-if analysis, and a few reach Power Query or introductory macros. What "free" means depends on who is teaching. University courses on edX are typically free to audit, so the videos and readings are open but graded work and the certificate are paid, and audit access can expire. Microsoft's own training modules are free in full and come with free badges.
Non-profit and company-run courses tend to be self-paced and free, sometimes with a certificate that costs money to download. When you read a syllabus, check that it names the Excel version or says the material is version-neutral, that it includes practice files rather than video alone, and that it states which topics are graded and which are optional. Excel suits anyone who works with tables: office staff, bookkeepers, analysts, students and small-business owners. If your goal is data analysis, pair an Excel course with a statistics or SQL course; if your goal is bookkeeping, the accounting and QuickBooks pages on this site sit next to this one.
Filters
| # | Course | Provider | Cost | Certificate | Level | Duration | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Excel 2010 An older but still-listed Alison course on Excel 2010, and one of the few on the platform whose digital certificate i… | Alison | Free | IncludedCertificate included | Beginner | — | |
| 2 | Microsoft Excel Essentials A video-led introduction to Excel for people starting from nothing. | Alison | Free | PaidPaid certificate | Beginner | — | |
| 3 | Useful Excel for Beginners A long-form Excel introduction of 89 video lectures across 13 sections, about 9 hours 38 minutes in total. | Udemy | Free | NoneNo certificate | Beginner | 9.6 hours | |
| 4 | Microsoft Excel Course: Getting Started For Beginners A compact crash course in Excel basics delivered as five video lectures in a single section, about 1 hour 27 minutes… | Udemy | Free | NoneNo certificate | Beginner | 1.5 hours | |
| 5 | Work smarter in Excel with Copilot Chat This is a single Microsoft Learn module rather than a full learning path, and it is one of only two Excel-specific mo… | Microsoft | Free | NoneNo certificate | Beginner | 0.4 hours | |
| 6 | Excel 2021 for Beginners Excel 2021 for Beginners is a video course from the training company SimonSezIT hosted on Alison. | Alison | Free | PaidPaid certificate | Beginner | — | |
| 7 | Excel Essentials: Master the Fundamentals Excel Essentials: Master the Fundamentals is a free Udemy course from Mohammad Shabbir Taibani and Data Skill Hub, la… | Udemy | Free | NoneNo certificate | Beginner | 1.9 hours |
Excel courses by provider
Questions about free excel courses
Do free Excel courses include a certificate?
Some do and some do not. Microsoft's training modules issue free badges, university audit tracks usually charge for the certificate, and non-profit platforms vary. Each course page on this site says whether a certificate exists and whether it is free or paid.
Do I need to own Excel to take a free course?
Most courses assume you have Excel or a compatible spreadsheet application installed. Many exercises also work in the free browser version of Excel or in other spreadsheet tools, though a few advanced features are desktop-only.
Which Excel course level should I start with?
If you have never written a formula, start with a beginner course that covers cell references and basic functions. If you already use SUM and VLOOKUP daily, look for an intermediate course that concentrates on PivotTables, data cleaning and Power Query.