SPCVisualsIf you have SPC for Excel and it does the job, this page will mostly tell you to keep it. It is a well-made add-in, it is cheap, and on the analysis side it does a great deal more than we do.
What it is worth comparing is the shape of the two tools, because they do different jobs, and the job decides it, not the feature list.
What SPC for Excel does better
Said first, because it is true:
- It costs less. One payment for the current version, no annual fee. Prices below.
- It has far more charts. X̄-R, X̄-s and individuals, but also CUSUM, EWMA and the attribute charts (p, np, c, u). We run four chart types: X̄-R, X̄-s, I-MR and c.
- It does the studies. Gage R&R, design of experiments, ANOVA, multiple regression, non-normal capability, distribution fitting, Pareto and histograms. We do none of that in the app.
- It can lock limits. The usual argument against spreadsheet charts — the limits quietly recalculate — does not apply to a user who locks them. The add-in lets you.
- It lives in Excel, which everyone already has open and already trusts.
If your SPC is one engineer analysing studies at a desk, buy it. Nothing below argues otherwise.
What it costs
These are SPC for Excel's own US list prices, read from spcforexcel.com/ordering-information on 12 October 2026. Prices change; check the source before quoting them.
| Licence | Price |
|---|---|
| Single user, version 7 | $329 once |
| 2–10 users | $296 per user |
| 11–20 users | $279 per user |
| 21–50 users | $263 per user |
| Site licence (one location) | $5,900 |
| Upgrade from an earlier version | $145 per user |
There is no maintenance or annual fee; a new major version is the upgrade fee. It needs Excel 2016 or later on Windows, or Excel 2019 or later on a Mac.
Our line plan is €169 a month. On price alone, for one person, the add-in wins by a mile, and any page telling you otherwise is counting selectively.
The job it is the wrong shape for
An add-in is a tool somebody opens. The chart is current when that person pastes in the new readings and refreshes it, and visible to whoever is looking at that workbook on that screen.
That is fine for a study. It is a problem for control, where the point is that a run of nine points on one side of the centre line at 02:00 is noticed at 02:00, not on Monday by the engineer who owns the file. Three things follow from the shape, whatever the add-in's quality:
Nobody is watching the file. Run rules only help if they are evaluated as the data arrives and somebody is told. In a workbook they are evaluated when it is opened.
The chart is on one desk. The operator at the machine and the supervisor on the floor do not have the add-in, and each extra person who does is another licence. So the chart lives with the person who needs it least.
Data has to be carried to it. A CMM export, a gauge file, a test rig: each one is somebody copying rows into a sheet. When that person is on holiday, the chart stops.
What we do instead
- Data comes to the chart. Upload the CSV your CMM or gauge already writes or the workbook as it is (.xlsx, first sheet), type a subgroup onto the chart as it is measured, or have the machine post readings to the API. Nobody refreshes anything.
- Rules run on every reading, per characteristic, and an email goes out when one trips.
- Limits are frozen and versioned. Each limit set records the baseline window it was computed from and when it took effect; new data is always judged against it.
- Anyone can look. A full-screen shop-floor view for a display over the line, and share links for people without an account. Priced per workspace, not per named user.
- The data leaves with you. Every characteristic downloads as CSV.
Where we are the wrong answer
- You need CUSUM, EWMA, or p, np and u charts in a live system. We do not run them. (The attribute chart tool does p, np, c and u for a one-off check.)
- You need Gage R&R, DOE or regression as part of the same tool. Keep the add-in, or a statistics package, for those.
- Your data never leaves Excel and the people who act on the chart are the people who own the workbook. Then the add-in is the right shape already.
Plenty of plants will end up with both: the add-in on the engineer's desk for studies, a live chart on the floor for control. They are not competing purchases.
Check the numbers before anything else
Do not take either vendor's word for the arithmetic. The free tools here run the same engine as the product, with no signup and nothing stored. Paste readings you have already charted in SPC for Excel into the control chart generator or the Cp/Cpk calculator and check the limits agree. If they do, the only question left is the one above: who needs to see the chart, and how soon.
The free plan charts 1 characteristic of your own, kept for good, with no card.
SPC for Excel is a product of BPI Consulting, LLC. We are not affiliated with it, and the prices above are theirs, quoted as published on the date given.