Net Worth Spreadsheet vs App: Which Should You Use?

Plenty of people have tracked their net worth in a spreadsheet for years and are perfectly happy with it. Plenty of others started a spreadsheet, kept it up for three months and abandoned it. Which tool you use matters less than whether you keep using it.

The case for a spreadsheet

It costs nothing and you already have the software. You can add any category, chart or formula you like, and the data stays in a file you control. Typing every number yourself also teaches you a lot about where your money actually is.

If you hold mostly cash and one or two funds, a spreadsheet with a row per month and a column per account is genuinely enough.

Where spreadsheets get painful

Prices are the first problem. Updating 25 share positions by hand every month gets old fast, and the formulas that pull live prices tend to break, hit rate limits or skip half of what you own. Gold and crypto need a spot price and the right purity maths on top.

Currencies come next. Converting four currencies with a consistent rate and date takes more care than most people expect.

Then there's the slow decay. Most spreadsheets get rebuilt every couple of years, and the old tabs never quite line up with the new ones. Updating one on a phone is miserable. And would your family find the file, let alone understand it? (More on that here.)

The case for an app

A good net worth app handles the repetitive parts: it prices stocks, ETFs, gold and crypto automatically from the quantities you record, converts currencies, keeps your history and charts it. The best ones also let you import broker statements so you don't type positions at all.

The trade-offs are cost (some apps are expensive), less flexibility, and trusting a company with your data. Some apps also want your bank login to sync accounts. If that bothers you, choose one that doesn't need it. How tracking without bank linking works.

A simple way to decide

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Do I hold investments with market prices? Then an app saves real time every month.
2. Do I hold more than one currency? An app avoids conversion mistakes.
3. Do I enjoy building spreadsheets? If yes, and your finances are simple, keep the spreadsheet.

Two or three "app" answers usually mean the spreadsheet will eventually get abandoned.

You can use both

Many people keep a spreadsheet for budgeting or detailed planning and use an app for the running net worth total. The total lives where it's easiest to keep current, and the spreadsheet handles whatever the app doesn't.

Moving from a spreadsheet to NetWorthy

1. Use your latest spreadsheet row as the starting point.
2. Add bank accounts and debts with their current balances.
3. For investments, enter quantities rather than values, or upload a statement from a supported broker, so prices update by themselves.
4. Add gold by weight and karat (how to value gold).
5. Keep the old spreadsheet as your history archive.

The free plan covers manual tracking. Live prices come with Lite and Pro. Want to sanity-check your current total first? Try the net worth calculator.