XLOOKUP (or VLOOKUP/INDEX-MATCH on older Excel), pivot tables, and conditional formatting cover the vast majority of what people hire an Excel freelancer for. Free YouTube tutorials on each of these run 10-15 minutes and are genuinely enough to get you functional.

Power Query is built into every modern version of Excel at no extra cost — it's a point-and-click tool that imports, filters, merges, and reshapes data from multiple files or sources, then refreshes with one click instead of you redoing the work by hand. This is what actually eliminates repetitive manual data prep, and it requires zero formulas or code.

Google Sheets is completely free and covers almost everything Excel does for typical small-business use, including its own Power-Query-like data connector features. Apps Script (Sheets' free scripting layer) is the direct free equivalent of Excel's VBA for automating repetitive tasks.

Describe what you want in plain English to Claude or ChatGPT — 'a formula that flags any row where this month's value dropped more than 20% from last month' — and it will write the exact Excel formula or Apps Script/VBA snippet. This is genuinely one of the biggest DIY unlocks in the last two years: you no longer need to memorize syntax, just verify the output makes sense.

Excel's built-in Macro Recorder (free, no add-in needed) records your clicks and keystrokes and turns them into a reusable one-click button — no coding required for straightforward repetitive formatting or copy-paste tasks. Save it for anything more complex than that and use AI-written VBA instead.