# Notion Review (2026): Can It Replace a Spreadsheet? URL: https://formula.dog/review/notion-review Type: review Locale: en Published: 2026-08-16 Updated: 2026-08-17 --- > Biscuit sniffed around Notion for a month to see if its database formulas can stand in for a spreadsheet. Verdict: sometimes, but not past a few hundred rows. *Tested for 32 days · August 2026* ## Notion Review (2026): Can Its Database Formulas Replace a Spreadsheet? Biscuit usually fetches Excel and Sheets formulas. This time he went looking to see if Notion's database formula engine holds up for the same jobs. ## Verdict **Score: 7.1/10** Notion is a connected workspace (docs, wikis, tasks, databases) that happens to ship a real formula language: 80+ functions across text, number, date, list, and logic. After 32 days building the same trackers we'd normally build in Sheets, our verdict: 7.1/10. It's genuinely capable for small-to-medium databases (under a few hundred rows) and it keeps notes and data in one place. It is not a spreadsheet replacement for anything data-heavy: no native VLOOKUP, and performance degrades noticeably once a database crosses a few hundred rows. **Quick scores:** - Formula power: 6/10 - Ease of use: 7/10 - Performance at scale: 5/10 - Pricing: 7/10 - Collaboration: 9/10 **Pros:** - 80+ built-in formula functions cover most day-to-day calculations without leaving the database - Relations + rollups let you build a lightweight cross-table lookup without VLOOKUP syntax - One workspace for notes, tasks, and data means less app-switching than an Excel + Slack + Trello stack **Cons:** - No native VLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH equivalent, cross-database lookups need relations + rollups, which takes 5-10 setup steps for something one formula does in Sheets - Databases visibly slow down once you pass a few hundred rows, well short of a spreadsheet's row ceiling - AI features (including AI-assisted formula writing) are locked behind the $20/member/month Business plan, not included in Plus *Call to action: Try Notion Free* (Free plan available, no credit card required) > **Disclosure** — Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links. If a link on this page is an affiliate link and you sign up through it, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Notion has no paid affiliate program active on our account as of this review, so the link above points to Notion's official site. We used a free Notion workspace plus a Plus-plan trial for 32 days between mid-July and mid-August 2026 to write this review. Nobody at Notion reviewed this article before publication. ## How we tested - **Tested for:** 32 days - **Plan paid:** Plus plan ($10/member/month), with a hands-on look at Business-tier AI features - **Version tested:** Notion web + desktop app, August 2026 build - **Prompts run:** 24 - **Test period:** 2026-07-16 → 2026-08-16 **Test categories:** Formula functions (text, number, date, list, logic), Cross-database lookups (relations + rollups), Database performance at scale, Views (table, board, calendar, gallery), Notion AI formula assistance, Pricing and plan limits We built three databases we'd normally build in Google Sheets: a project tracker (42 rows), an expense log (180 rows), and a stress-test import of roughly 600 rows pulled from a dummy CSV. For each, we wrote 24 formulas covering the categories in Notion's own formula documentation (text, number, date/time, list, logic) and timed how each database felt to scroll and filter at each row count. We also tested Notion AI's formula-writing assistant on 8 of those 24 formulas to see how often it produced a working formula on the first try, and we priced out a Plus + Business comparison for a 5-person team over 12 months. Screenshots in this review are from our own workspace and Notion's public pricing and help pages, not stock photography. ## Should you use Notion instead of a spreadsheet? **YES if you...** - You want one place for notes, docs, and light data instead of juggling Sheets + a wiki + a task tool - Your databases stay under a few hundred rows (project trackers, content calendars, small CRMs) - Your team already collaborates in Notion for docs and you'd rather not maintain a separate spreadsheet - You value relations between records more than raw calculation power **NO if you...** - You work with datasets over a few hundred rows regularly (Notion visibly slows down there) - You need pivot tables, array formulas, or heavy financial modeling: that's still Excel/Sheets territory - You need VLOOKUP-style cross-sheet lookups without setting up relations and rollups first - Your budget is $0 and you need AI formula help: that requires the $20/month Business tier ## Notion pricing (2026) ### Free — $0/mo Individuals, personal projects - Unlimited pages and blocks - Basic databases - Trial AI - Notion Calendar ### Plus — $10/mo per member *(What we tested)* Small teams and professionals - Everything in Free - Custom forms and sites - Unlimited file uploads - Unlimited charts - Basic connections ### Business — $20/mo per member Growing teams that want AI baked in - Everything in Plus - Notion Agent + AI Meeting Notes - Enterprise Search (beta) - SAML SSO - Granular database permissions ### Enterprise — Custom Large orgs, security requirements - Everything in Business - Zero data retention with LLM providers - SCIM provisioning - Audit log - Dedicated customer success manager **ROI breakdown:** A 5-person team on Plus pays $50/month ($600/year) over the Free plan. Add AI (Business) and it jumps to $100/month ($1,200/year), versus roughly $144/user/year for Google Workspace Business Standard. The AI premium is the real cost driver, not the base workspace. **Hidden costs & gotchas:** - Custom Agents run on a separate credit system ($10 per 1,000 credits), on top of Business - AI formula assistance is gated to Business ($20/mo), Plus users write formulas manually - Guests beyond the free tier's limit can silently push a workspace toward a paid seat, a complaint repeated in real user reviews below *[Interactive widget — see the live page for the full experience]* ## What we measured - **Formula functions available:** 80+ across 9 categories *(Counted directly from Notion's official formula-syntax documentation)* - **AI-assisted formula success rate:** 5/8 worked on first try *(8 formulas requested from Notion AI; 3 needed manual correction)* - **Row count before visible lag:** ~200-300 rows *(Scrolling and filtering our 600-row stress-test database showed noticeable lag past this range; our 42 and 180-row databases stayed smooth)* - **G2 rating:** 4.6 /5 (13,700+ reviews) *(Sourced from G2's live Notion product page, August 2026)* - **Cheapest paid seat with AI included:** $20 /member/month (Business) *(Sourced from notion.com/pricing, August 2026)* > Build a rollup formula that sums a linked 'Expenses' database's amount field, filtered to the current month, without a helper column. Took two relation properties, one rollup, and a formula wrapping dateBetween() around now(): five setup steps total. The equivalent in Sheets is one SUMIFS formula. It works, and it's genuinely readable once built, but it's not a one-line answer. > Ask Notion AI: 'write a formula that flags rows overdue by more than 7 days' Notion AI returned a working dateBetween(now(), prop("Due date"), "days") > 7 formula on the first try: one of the cleaner AI-assisted outputs we saw in the 8-formula test. ## The honest list ### Pros - **80+ formula functions is a real, usable formula language** — Text, number, date, list, and logic functions cover the large majority of what a knowledge worker reaches for day to day. It won't replace Excel's statistical function library, but it's far more than a 'basic calculator.' - **Relations and rollups genuinely replace some VLOOKUP use cases** — Once set up, a relation + rollup pair updates live as source data changes, which a static VLOOKUP copy-paste doesn't. The setup cost is the tradeoff. - **One workspace beats app-switching for small-to-medium teams** — Docs, task boards, and a database that talks to both live in the same place. For teams already writing docs in Notion, adding a lightweight database is close to free. ### Cons - **No native VLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH equivalent** — Cross-database lookups require building a relation property and a rollup, typically 5-10 clicks and property setups, for something a single VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP formula does in one line in Excel or Sheets. - **Performance drops noticeably past a few hundred rows** — Our 600-row stress-test database showed visible lag scrolling and filtering, well within what a modern spreadsheet handles instantly. Capterra and TrustRadius reviewers report the same threshold independently. - **AI features, including AI formula help, require the $20/month Business tier** — The Plus plan we tested most of this review on does not include Notion AI. A 5-person team wanting AI assistance is looking at $1,200/year, not the $600/year Plus alone costs. - **Billing complaints are a real, recurring theme in public reviews** — Notion's Trustpilot page sits at 2.3/5 (rated "Poor") largely because of auto-renewal and refund-policy complaints, not core product complaints: worth knowing before you hand over a card for an annual plan. ## Final verdict **Score: 7.1/10** Notion earns its reputation as a genuinely capable all-in-one workspace, and its database formula engine is a pleasant surprise if you came in expecting a toy. 80+ functions, live relations, and a formula syntax that's readable once you're past the first nested IF is a real toolkit, not a marketing bullet point. But it is not a spreadsheet, and it doesn't try to be one past a certain size. Once a database crosses a few hundred rows, the lag is real, not anecdotal; we measured it ourselves and every third-party review platform we checked (Capterra, TrustRadius) flags the same ceiling independently. There's also no VLOOKUP-style one-line lookup: relations and rollups get you there, but at 5-10x the setup steps. Recommended for: knowledge workers and small teams who want notes, tasks, and light databases in one workspace, trading some formula convenience for consolidation. Not recommended for: a 500+ row dataset, pivot tables, array formulas, or one-line cross-sheet lookups. That's still Excel or Google Sheets, and that's fine. Biscuit isn't going anywhere. **Dimensional scoring:** - **Formula power:** 6/10 — 80+ functions, but no VLOOKUP equivalent - **Ease of use:** 7/10 — Formulas 2.0 syntax is readable once learned - **Performance at scale:** 5/10 — Visible lag past ~200-300 rows in our test - **Pricing:** 7/10 — Free tier is generous; AI premium is steep - **Collaboration:** 9/10 — Real-time multi-user editing works well *Call to action: Try Notion Free* ## Common questions ### Does Notion have VLOOKUP? Not directly. Notion has no single function that mirrors Excel's VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP. To pull data from another database, you build a relation property linking the two databases, then a rollup to surface the field you need: functionally similar, but several setup steps instead of one formula. ### Is Notion good for spreadsheets? For small-to-medium structured data (project trackers, content calendars, simple CRMs under a few hundred rows), yes. For anything data-heavy (pivot tables, large datasets, complex financial models), Excel or Google Sheets still win; Notion's databases visibly slow down past a few hundred rows in our testing. ### How many formula functions does Notion support? 80+ built-in functions across nine categories per Notion's own formula-syntax documentation: text, number, advanced math, date/time, list, list-condition, logic, person, and utility functions. ### Is Notion AI included in the free plan? Only a trial. Full AI features, including AI Meeting Notes and Notion Agent, require the Business plan at $20/member/month as of August 2026. ### Is Notion worth it in 2026? If you want one workspace for docs, tasks, and light databases and can live with per-seat pricing that climbs fast with AI features, yes. If you need it to replace a spreadsheet for real data work, no: pair it with Excel or Sheets instead of replacing them. ### Why is Notion rated so differently on G2 versus Trustpilot? G2 (4.6/5) and Capterra (4.7/5) reviewers are largely rating day-to-day product use: organization, collaboration, flexibility. Trustpilot's 2.3/5 skews toward billing and cancellation disputes, a different (and smaller, 425-review) sample dominated by subscription complaints rather than feature reviews. ### Does Notion slow down with large databases? Yes. In our testing, a 600-row stress-test database showed visible scrolling and filtering lag that our 42-row and 180-row databases didn't have. Capterra and TrustRadius reviewers independently report the same performance ceiling. ## Update log - **2026-08-16** — Initial publication after a 32-day hands-on test of Notion's formula engine, database performance, and pricing. ## FAQ ### Does Notion have VLOOKUP? Not directly. Notion has no single function that mirrors Excel's VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP. To pull data from another database, you build a relation property linking the two databases, then a rollup to surface the field you need: functionally similar, but several setup steps instead of one formula. ### Is Notion good for spreadsheets? For small-to-medium structured data (project trackers, content calendars, simple CRMs under a few hundred rows), yes. For anything data-heavy (pivot tables, large datasets, complex financial models), Excel or Google Sheets still win; Notion's databases visibly slow down past a few hundred rows in our testing. ### How many formula functions does Notion support? 80+ built-in functions across nine categories per Notion's own formula-syntax documentation: text, number, advanced math, date/time, list, list-condition, logic, person, and utility functions. ### Is Notion AI included in the free plan? Only a trial. Full AI features, including AI Meeting Notes and Notion Agent, require the Business plan at $20/member/month as of August 2026. ### Is Notion worth it in 2026? If you want one workspace for docs, tasks, and light databases and can live with per-seat pricing that climbs fast with AI features, yes. If you need it to replace a spreadsheet for real data work, no: pair it with Excel or Sheets instead of replacing them. ### Why is Notion rated so differently on G2 versus Trustpilot? G2 (4.6/5) and Capterra (4.7/5) reviewers are largely rating day-to-day product use: organization, collaboration, flexibility. Trustpilot's 2.3/5 skews toward billing and cancellation disputes, a different (and smaller, 425-review) sample dominated by subscription complaints rather than feature reviews. ### Does Notion slow down with large databases? Yes. In our testing, a 600-row stress-test database showed visible scrolling and filtering lag that our 42-row and 180-row databases didn't have. Capterra and TrustRadius reviewers independently report the same performance ceiling.