Which of the listed free Excel courses come with a certificate
The 7 courses on this page split into three groups on the certificate question, and the group depends on the provider rather than the course. Alison courses end with an assessment and offer a certificate; Microsoft Learn modules end with a knowledge check and no certificate; free Udemy courses come without a certificate of completion by Udemy's own policy.
Free certificate: Microsoft Excel 2010 on Alison
Microsoft Excel 2010 is the one Excel course listed here whose digital certificate costs nothing. Alison's help centre names it on a short legacy list of courses with a free digital certificate, next to its Word, PowerPoint, Access and Office courses of the same version. The course is free to study, self-paced, marked CPD-accredited and rated Beginner Level. It works through the 2010 menus with sample spreadsheets: creating, saving and printing worksheets, formulas including VLOOKUP and IF, tables, date calculations, conditional formatting, sparklines, charts, macros and keyboard shortcuts.
Paid certificate, free study: the other Alison Excel courses
Microsoft Excel Essentials and Excel 2021 for Beginners follow Alison's usual model: every module, video and assessment is free, and the CPD-accredited Alison Certificate offered after you pass is a paid digital or printed product. The price appears inside your account rather than on the course page, so this site does not list it. If you do not buy it, you can download a free Learner Record, which Alison describes as official confirmation of the courses you completed and the results you achieved.
No certificate: Microsoft Learn and Udemy
Work smarter in Excel with Copilot Chat is a single Microsoft Learn module; signing in adds progress tracking and an optional assessment, but there is no certificate. The Udemy courses on this page are free in full but, like every free Udemy course, issue no certificate of completion, switch off instructor Q&A and messaging, and may show ads. If a certificate is the point, the free certification courses hub lists only courses whose credential is free.
Learn Excel free online: which course to start with
Every course listed here is rated beginner, so the choice comes down to how much time you have and whether you want the material tied to a specific Excel version.
If you have never written a formula
Useful Excel for Beginners on Udemy is the longest option at 9.6 hours of video, ordered the way a new user meets the program: basics, entering data, formatting, editing, saving and viewing, calculations, charts, analysing data, tables and sharing workbooks. It was recorded for Excel for Windows, and the instructor recommends the 2007, 2010 or 2013 versions. Alison's Microsoft Excel Essentials covers similar ground in less time: launching Excel, entering numbers, dates and text, basic formulas, lookup and logical functions, and charts.
If you want the current interface explained
Excel 2021 for Beginners, produced by SimonSezIT and hosted on Alison, opens with how the 2021 release differs from Excel for Microsoft 365, then covers the start screen and backstage area, navigating cells, rows and columns, workbooks and templates, formatting, absolute versus relative referencing, named ranges and the SUM and AVERAGE functions. It is also available in Spanish.
If you have an hour or two
Excel Essentials: Master the Fundamentals runs 1 hour 54 minutes and packs in more than its length suggests: SUM, COUNT, COUNTA, AVERAGE and SUBTOTAL, CONCATENATE, VLOOKUP and IF with worked examples, Text to Columns, Flash Fill, Data Validation lists, sheet protection and a basic PivotTable, with quizzes between sections. Microsoft Excel Course: Getting Started For Beginners is shorter at 1 hour 30 minutes and concentrates on the functions most common in office work, keeping large data sets in a table, and building simple reports; it expects Microsoft Office installed and some familiarity with filters.
If you already use Excel and want Copilot
Work smarter in Excel with Copilot Chat takes 24 minutes and teaches you to generate formulas with Copilot Chat, summarise and visualise a data set, and automate routine tasks. Microsoft marks it beginner with no prerequisites, but following the exercises hands-on needs Microsoft 365 with Copilot Chat, a product requirement rather than a course fee.
How to learn Excel free without paying for anything
Alison courses need a free account and show ads while you study, with no time limit on finishing. Microsoft Learn modules can be read without any account. Udemy free courses need an account but no card, and there is no trial that later converts to a paid plan. The only spending decisions on this page are optional: an Alison certificate after passing, or Alison Premium to remove ads.
Where the free courses stop is worth knowing too. None of the listed courses is rated intermediate or advanced, and none goes deep on Power Query or macros; Microsoft Excel 2010 is the only one that covers saving and running macros at all. For analysis beyond a basic PivotTable, pair a course here with the free online data science courses hub.
Related subjects and providers
The free online accounting courses hub lists courses that put spreadsheets to work on ledgers and statements, and the free online business courses hub includes a Google Sheets budgeting course with a free certificate. For the full policy on certificates and Learner Records, read the Alison provider page; for how Microsoft Learn modules work, read the Microsoft page.