After the first few Udemy Excel courses, the landing pages started looking suspiciously familiar.
Nearly everything promised some combination of “beginner to advanced,” formulas, dashboards, productivity, and becoming an Excel expert. The problem was that those labels told me almost nothing about which course I'd actually want when I had a particular spreadsheet problem to solve.
So I tested 12 courses with a different question in mind: what is this course unusually good at?
That matters even more in 2026. AI can tell me the syntax for XLOOKUP in seconds. I'm more interested in courses that teach me how formulas, data preparation, models, dashboards, and automation fit into repeatable workflows.
If only there was an AI course generator that could come in handy
Seven courses survived the investigation, each for a different job.
1. Microsoft Excel - Excel from Beginner to Advanced 2026 — the all-rounder
Kyle Pew's Microsoft Excel - Excel from Beginner to Advanced 2026 is the one I'd choose if somebody wanted one broad starting point.
The current course moves from Excel fundamentals through formulas and functions, PivotTables, PowerPivot, dashboards, macros, and VBA. It also provides exercise files and quizzes, so it isn't purely a watch-the-instructor-click experience.
Its strength is progression. You can start without much Excel knowledge and continue well beyond formatting cells and adding columns.
The same breadth is also the limitation. If you already know Excel and specifically need Power Query or advanced formulas, I'd skip the familiar material and choose one of the specialists below.
2. Microsoft Excel: Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions — when formulas are the problem
Chris Dutton and Maven Analytics get much more specific with Microsoft Excel: Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions.
The current course concentrates on building formulas for analysis and business intelligence, with project files, quizzes, and homework exercises rather than treating functions as isolated syntax to memorize.
That's the distinction I liked. Good formula training should teach you how to compose a solution, not merely where to put the comma in somebody else's formula.
I wouldn't start here if SUM still feels exotic. This is the course I'd open after the basics, when formulas themselves have become the prime suspect.
3. Microsoft Excel: Learn Modern Excel for Data Analysis — for analyst thinking
For data analysis, I'd pick Microsoft Excel: Learn Modern Excel for Data Analysis from Maven Analytics and Enrique Ruiz.
The 2026 course teaches Excel through an analysis lens: managing and exploring data, formulas, visualization, and PivotTables, with hands-on projects built into the learning experience.
That makes it different from simply becoming “good at Excel.” You're learning to use Excel as an analytical tool.
If your goal is financial modeling or deep automation, another course goes further. For someone moving toward analyst work, however, this has the more useful center of gravity.
4. Excel Interactive Dashboards and Data Analysis — when the output has to communicate
Ian Littlejohn's Excel Interactive Dashboards and Data Analysis made my list because dashboarding deserves more than a chapter tucked into a giant Excel course.
The current version walks through building an interactive dashboard from raw data using PivotTables, PivotCharts, and slicers. It also uses activity briefs before walkthroughs, which I prefer to simply copying whatever appears on screen.
More importantly, it deals with questions such as how source data should be structured and how to present comparisons, trends, rankings, and variance.
If you mainly need formulas, it's too specialized. If your spreadsheets eventually become reports other humans need to understand, that's precisely the point.
5. Advanced Excel: Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX — when the data pipeline becomes the job
One thing testing these courses reminded me of is that “advanced Excel” increasingly means better data flow, not increasingly terrifying formulas.
Advanced Excel: Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX by Start-Tech Academy, Abhishek Bansal, and Pukhraj Parikh focuses on importing and transforming data with Power Query, creating relationships with Power Pivot, and using DAX for calculations and analysis. The current course includes sources such as CSV, SQL, folders, and XML.
I'd take this when repeated cleaning, combining, and reshaping of data has become the real bottleneck.
It isn't where I'd send a complete Excel beginner. You get more from it once normal tables, formulas, and PivotTables already feel familiar.
6. Beginner to Pro in Excel: Financial Modeling and Valuation — for finance-shaped spreadsheets
Beginner to Pro in Excel: Financial Modeling and Valuation from 365 Careers solves a much more specific problem: using Excel to model businesses and financial decisions.
Its current curriculum includes building P&L statements, financial models, valuation models, multiple scenarios, charts, functions, and PivotTables.
That's why it survived. A finance professional doesn't just need “advanced Excel”; they need Excel applied to the structure of financial work.
If you don't care about modeling companies, there are better general courses. For finance-heavy work, the context is the feature.
7. Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros — when repetition gets suspicious
Leila Gharani's Unlock Excel VBA and Excel Macros is my automation pick.
The course goes from VBA fundamentals and the Visual Basic Editor into loops, variables, arrays, error handling, workbook events, UserForms, and automation across Excel and other Office applications. It also includes real-world automation projects.
This is where my developer instincts kick in. If I'm manually performing the same spreadsheet ritual every Tuesday afternoon, automation immediately enters the case file.
You don't need VBA for every Excel problem, though. Learn the workflow first; automate it when repetition actually becomes expensive.
The seven-course cheat sheet
| Course | Best for | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Kyle Pew: Beginner to Advanced | Broad Excel progression | Too broad for specialists |
| Advanced Formulas & Functions | Formula depth | Assumes some foundations |
| Modern Excel for Data Analysis | Analytical workflows | Less automation-focused |
| Interactive Dashboards | Reporting and dashboards | Narrower scope |
| Power Query, Power Pivot & DAX | Data preparation and modeling | Not beginner-first |
| Financial Modeling & Valuation | Finance and business models | Finance-specific |
| Unlock Excel VBA and Macros | Automation | Unnecessary for many users |
Case closed: which one would I actually take?
In 2026, I wouldn't choose an Excel course based on who promises to make me an “expert.” AI has made isolated how-to questions easier than ever. The valuable part of a course is showing how the pieces fit together and then making you practice the workflow.
I'd choose based on the problem: foundations, formulas, analysis, dashboards, data transformation, financial modeling, or automation.
Pick the spreadsheet problem you actually want to solve, then choose the course built around that problem.
Which Excel skill took you the longest to stop Googling every single time?
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