# What to use instead of Excel's Stocks data type and STOCKHISTORY

Excel's stock data comes from LSEG, is delayed by exchange, bars professional use, and STOCKHISTORY needs Microsoft 365. What replaces it in the grid.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/alternatives/excel-stocks-data-type*

## The subject

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Product | Excel Stocks data type and STOCKHISTORY |
| Status | restricted |
| Website | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/excel |
| Category | Stock Market Data APIs |

The stock prices built into Excel — a linked data type that turns a ticker into a cell of fields, and a function that spills daily, weekly or monthly price history into the sheet.

## Replacements

*Ordered by how little work the switch takes, least first. Paid placement does not affect this order.*

1. [Wisesheets](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/wisesheets.md) — The nearest swap inside Excel — WISEPRICE for prices and history over a whole column of tickers, plus statements and estimates, for 60 dollars a year.
2. [Alpha Vantage](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/alpha-vantage.md) — A free Excel add-in from Microsoft's own store on a free key. At 25 requests a day it keeps a short watchlist current, not a column of tickers.
3. [EODHD](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/eodhd.md) — For exchanges Excel serves late or only at the close — an Excel add-on over 60-plus exchanges, Warsaw among them, end-of-day from 19.99 a month.
4. [Twelve Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/twelve-data.md) — An Excel add-in on a key that also serves scripts. Grow at 29 dollars a month is real-time US and end-of-day elsewhere, on 27 markets.
5. [Tiingo](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tiingo.md) — No add-in, but CSV responses Excel's From Web query can load, and a 50-dollar Commercial plan licensed for internal use at a company.
6. [Portfolio Performance](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/portfolio-performance.md) — If the workbook was really a portfolio valuation — a free desktop tracker with its own price feed and ECB exchange rates, exporting CSV back to Excel.

## The product

Excel has two ways to bring a stock price into a cell, and Microsoft documents both on its support
site, which is where every fact in this section was read on 8 October 2026.

The **Stocks data type** turns text into a linked record. Type a ticker, a company name or a fund
name, choose Data, then Stocks, and the cell becomes a record you can pull fields out of — price,
change, previous close, last trade time, exchange, a 52-week high — by column or by formula such
as `=A2.Price`. Microsoft says it is "only available to Microsoft 365 accounts or those with a
free Microsoft Account", and only with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese
added as an editing language. **`STOCKHISTORY`** is a function:
`STOCKHISTORY(stock, start_date, [end_date], [interval], [headers], [property0]…)` spills a table
of date, close, open, high, low and volume at a daily, weekly or monthly interval. Its help page
says it "requires a Microsoft 365 Personal, Microsoft 365 Family, Microsoft 365 Business Standard,
or Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscription".

Behind both sits one supplier. Microsoft's page "About the Stocks financial data sources" says
"Fundamental company data, historical data, real-time and delayed prices, fund summary and
performance data are provided by LSEG Data & Analytics" — the company formerly called Refinitiv,
whose 2019 copyright notice the page still carries. The same page fences the data on three sides:

- **Delay by exchange.** A table of 49 venues gives the minutes. Only Cboe BZX and Nasdaq's
  last-sale feed are real-time. NYSE, Nasdaq, NYSE Arca, OTC Markets, London, Xetra, Euronext,
  Hong Kong and Bombay are 15 minutes; Toronto, the ASX, Korea and Taiwan 20; Buenos Aires,
  Brazil, Shenzhen and Johannesburg 30; Warsaw and the Ukrainian exchange end of day. No Tokyo,
  Shanghai or Singapore venue is in the table at all.
- **Who may use it.** "The data is not for financial industry professional use or use by other
  professionals at non-financial firms (including government entities)" whose functions include
  trading, investing, compliance, risk management, treasury, financial research and a dozen more.
- **What you may do with it.** The disclaimer, in capitals, says any copying, republication or
  redistribution of Refinitiv content "is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent
  of Refinitiv", and that the content "is not intended for trading purposes".

`STOCKHISTORY` adds two limits of its own. It "generally only updates after a trading day
completes", so today's bar is not there until the market closes. And "while some financial
instruments may be available as Stocks data types, the historical information will not be
available" — Microsoft's example is "most popular Index Funds including the S&P 500".

Refresh is manual for most people: Data, Refresh All, or a right-click on the cell. A setting that
refreshes stock data every five minutes exists, and Microsoft says it is "currently only available
to those in the Insiders program".

None of this is an event with a date, which is why the status on this page is restricted rather
than retired. But it is a supplier relationship, and Microsoft has ended one before: it switched
off Wolfram data types on 11 June 2023 with the sentence "We're simply choosing not to renew this
partnership", and Money in Excel on 30 June 2023.

## What to use instead

The list is ordered by how little has to change, because most readers have a workbook that already
works and a limit it just ran into. The [spreadsheets collection](https://stockmarketstack.com/collections/spreadsheets) lists
every card with an add-in; this page is about which limit each one removes.

**If you want the same grid with different formulas**, [Wisesheets](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/wisesheets) is the
shortest move. `WISEPRICE` returns live and historical prices and `WISE` the statements and
estimates the data type never had, and every function takes ranges, so a column of tickers is one
formula. Pro is 60 dollars a year, individual use only. Note the catch it shares with
`STOCKHISTORY`: on desktop Excel, custom functions need an Office 365 subscription too, and the
vendor's advice without one is Excel on the web.

**If the budget is zero**, [Alpha Vantage](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/alpha-vantage) publishes a free Excel add-in in
Microsoft's own store, on a free key. Twenty-five requests a day is the honest test: enough to
keep a handful of closes current, not enough for a hundred rows recalculating.

**If the exchange is the problem** — Warsaw at end of day, or a venue missing from Microsoft's
table — [EODHD](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/eodhd) has an Excel add-on over 60-plus exchanges, Warsaw among them, with
end-of-day for all of them from 19.99 a month. Check its exchange list for yours before paying.
[Twelve Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/twelve-data) has an Excel add-in on a key that also serves scripts; its
29-dollar Grow plan is real-time for US stocks and end-of-day on the rest of its 27 markets.

**If the licence is the problem**, this is the hard row. Every cheap plan above is personal use.
[Tiingo](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tiingo) ships no add-in, but its API answers in CSV, and Excel's own From Web
query can load a CSV address into a table. Its Commercial plan, 50 dollars a month, licenses
internal use inside one organisation for up to two developers — the cheapest published licence on
this page that covers work, though for US and Chinese listings only.

**If the name you keep meeting is MarketXLS**, it is the same shape as the add-ins above at a
higher price, with the data fees bundled in. It is a paid add-in of stock functions for Excel —
on Windows, on Mac through its Office 365 add-in and in Excel Online, with a Google Sheets add-on
beside it. Its pricing page, read on 9 October 2026, starts at Standard for 850 dollars a year
billed annually, data and exchange fees included, for non-professional users; quotes come from
QuoteMedia, 15 minutes delayed by default. Real-time streaming is the Advanced plan at 1,500 a
year, and Business at 2,400 is the first plan offered to professional users. Default coverage is
US and Canadian stocks, ETFs and options, with European and Asian end-of-day prices as an add-on,
and the same page says the software is for personal use only as its licence agreement defines it.
Against Wisesheets at 60 dollars a year, the question to price is whether the bundle — delayed
quotes, a streaming tier, a support line — is worth roughly fourteen times the entry fee for the
workbook you actually have.

**If the workbook was a portfolio tracker in disguise**, stop maintaining it. [Portfolio
Performance](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/portfolio-performance) is free, keeps the file on your disk, prices US and
European listings from its own feed, converts at ECB reference rates and exports CSV back to Excel
when you want a pivot table.

For fundamentals rather than prices, the [how-to on fundamentals in a
spreadsheet](https://stockmarketstack.com/how-to/get-fundamentals-into-a-spreadsheet) covers that job in full.

## What you give up

**Real-time Nasdaq and Cboe trades inside a subscription you already pay for.** The data type
prices trades on Nasdaq and Cboe BZX without delay, at no charge beyond Microsoft 365 or a free
account. The cheap tiers of the replacements are mostly delayed or end-of-day: EODHD's quote is
15–20 minutes on its end-of-day plans, and Alpha Vantage is 15-minute delayed at 49.99 a month,
real-time from 99.99.

**Typing a name instead of a ticker.** The data type matches "Microsoft" or a fund name and offers
a picker when it is unsure. Every add-in here wants a symbol in its own format, so the first hour
of any migration is building that column.

**No meter that we could find.** None of Microsoft's pages we read sets a request quota on the
data type or on `STOCKHISTORY`. Every pick here meters something — 25 requests a day on Alpha
Vantage's free key, credits per minute on Twelve Data, 100,000 calls a day on EODHD's paid plans —
and a workbook that recalculates on every edit spends a quota faster than a script does.

## Migration notes

**Paste the old history as values first, and set the date format.** `STOCKHISTORY` output is a
live spill: delete the formula and the numbers go with it. Microsoft's page adds that the function
"does not stamp a format on the cells that it spills into" — paste as values and the dates arrive
as serial numbers until you format the column.

**Map exchanges once, by MIC.** `STOCKHISTORY` takes an ISO market identifier code before the
ticker, as in `XNAS:MSFT`, and Microsoft's exchange table lists the MIC for every venue.
Wisesheets uses Yahoo-style suffixes such as `SAP.DE` and `RY.TO`; other providers have their own.
A lookup column keyed on the MIC is cheaper than editing formulas — see
[symbology](https://stockmarketstack.com/glossary/symbology).

**Check the period convention before comparing.** For a monthly interval Microsoft dates each row
on "the first day of the month, regardless of if it was a trading day", and a weekly row on the
first trading day of the week. A provider that stamps the period's last day will look a row out of
line with the old sheet when the data is the same.

**Check adjustment on one split.** Microsoft's page does not say whether `STOCKHISTORY` closes are
adjusted for splits and dividends. Before trusting a rebuilt series, compare both sources across a
split date you know — see [why adjusted close differs](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/why-adjusted-close-differs).

## FAQ

### Where does Excel's stock data come from?

From LSEG Data & Analytics, formerly Refinitiv. Microsoft's page on its data sources, read on 8 October 2026, says LSEG provides fundamental company data, historical data, real-time and delayed prices and fund data for both the Stocks data type and STOCKHISTORY. The same page still carries Refinitiv's 2019 copyright notice.

### Is Excel stock data real-time?

Only for trades on Cboe BZX and Nasdaq's last-sale feed. Microsoft's exchange table puts NYSE, Nasdaq, London, Xetra and Hong Kong at 15 minutes, Toronto and the ASX at 20, Shenzhen and Johannesburg at 30, and Warsaw and the Ukrainian exchange at end of day. STOCKHISTORY generally updates only after the trading day completes.

### Do I need Microsoft 365 for STOCKHISTORY?

Yes. Microsoft's help page says it requires a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, Business Standard or Business Premium subscription. The Stocks data type is wider — Microsoft says it is available to Microsoft 365 accounts or a free Microsoft Account, with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese as an editing language.

### Can I use Excel stock data at work?

Not if your work touches money. Microsoft's data sources page says the data is not for financial industry professional use, or for professionals at non-financial firms, government included, whose work includes trading, investing, hedging, compliance, risk, M&A, treasury, financial research or planning, consulting, payments, leasing or financing.

### Why does STOCKHISTORY return nothing for the S&P 500?

Because Microsoft does not carry history for it. Its help page says some instruments available as Stocks data types have no historical information, and gives as its example most popular index funds, including the S&P 500. A provider that sells index or ETF history is the fix.

### Can the Stocks data type refresh on its own?

Only partly. Microsoft documents a refresh setting of every five minutes, on file open or manual, set per data type, and says the feature is currently available only to people in the Insiders program. Everyone else refreshes with Data, Refresh All, or by right-clicking a cell.