How to make a pivot table online for free

Updated October 14, 2026. Written for GridCraft 0.6.1 (what changed since).

Get the data into shape

A PivotTable reads a plain list: one header row, one record per row, no blank rows or columns in the middle, and one kind of value per column. Dates should be real dates, not text, or they can't be grouped by month. If your data already lives in an .xlsx or .csv file, drag it onto the grid. To follow along with the numbers below, copy this small sales list, click cell A1 in a blank workbook and paste:

Date	Region	Product	Units	Revenue
2026-01-08	East	Notebook	120	480
2026-01-15	West	Pen	300	450
2026-01-22	East	Backpack	12	420
2026-01-29	North	Notebook	80	320
2026-02-05	West	Backpack	9	315
2026-02-12	East	Pen	250	375
2026-02-19	North	Pen	180	270
2026-02-26	West	Notebook	95	380
2026-03-05	East	Notebook	140	560
2026-03-12	North	Backpack	15	525
2026-03-19	West	Pen	210	315
2026-03-26	East	Backpack	10	350

The columns are separated by tabs, so the paste fills A1:E13, and dates typed as 2026-01-08 become real dates.

Build the first report

1. Open the spreadsheet at gridcraft.run/editor and paste the list, or open your own file.
2. Click any cell inside the data. GridCraft uses the table the cell belongs to, or the block of filled cells around it.
3. Choose Insert › PivotTable. A new sheet appears in front of your data with an empty report at A3, and the PivotTable Fields pane opens on the right.
4. Tick Region, then Revenue. Text fields go to Rows and number fields go to Values, so you get revenue by region straight away.

With the sample list, the report reads:

Hover over a field name in the pane to see a few of its values, which helps when the source has dozens of columns with similar names.

Revenue by month and region

The more useful report crosses two fields. Untick Region and tick Date. Dates are stored as numbers, so Date lands in Values as Sum of Date; open its menu and choose Move to Row Labels, then open the menu again and choose Group by Months. Tick Region again and use its menu to Move to Column Labels. Every month becomes a row and every region a column:

Now open the menu of Sum of Revenue in the Values area and choose Show as % of Grand Total. Each cell becomes its share of the 4,760 total: East in March is 19.12%, and East's column adds up to 45.90%. Show as No Calculation brings the amounts back.

What the field menus do

Every field in the four areas has a small menu. These are the options and where they appear:

Below the areas, Report Layout switches between Compact, Outline and Tabular. Tabular puts each row field in its own column, which is the layout to pick when you plan to copy the report somewhere else. Refresh picks up changes you made to the source data.

Calculated fields: average price done right

Go back to the first report, Region in Rows and Revenue in Values. Click Calculated Field… in the pane, name the field Price and enter =Revenue/Units. GridCraft adds Sum of Price to the values, and East shows 4.11.

That figure is East's total revenue, 2,185, divided by its total units, 532. GridCraft computes calculated fields on each cell's sums, as Excel does, which gives the price a customer actually paid on average. Averaging East's five per-row prices instead (4, 35, 1.50, 4 and 35) gives 15.90, because the two backpack orders of 10 and 12 units count as much as 250 pens. When you want the weighted figure, a calculated field is the tool; when you want the plain average of a column, use Summarize by Average.

A chart from the report

Click a cell of the report, open Search commands (the magnifier in the title bar) and run PivotChart. GridCraft adds a column chart bound to the report: the row items go along the axis and each column item becomes a series, so the month-by-region report gives months along the axis and one series per region. It follows the report when you refresh it or move fields. The chart needs at least one field in Values and one in Rows or Columns.

What GridCraft's PivotTables can't do yet

The everyday report is covered. These parts of Excel's PivotTables are not there yet, each with the closest workaround:

• Slicers and timelines for PivotTables. Put the field in Report Filter instead. Slicers do exist for ordinary tables.
• Number grouping, such as ages in bands of 10. Add a helper column to the source, for example =FLOOR(C2,10), and pivot on that.
• Value and label filters, such as top 10 by revenue, and sorting by value (the sort options order the labels). A formula does it: =TAKE(GROUPBY(Sheet1!B2:B13,Sheet1!E2:E13,"SUM",0,0,-2),10) lists the ten largest regions, biggest first.
• Calculated items (formulas between items of one field, like East minus West). Calculated fields work.
• GETPIVOTDATA. Use =SUMIFS(Sheet1!E:E,Sheet1!B:B,"East") on the source data.
• Data-model pivots that combine several tables (Power Pivot).

For a summary that lives in a formula rather than a report, GridCraft also has GROUPBY and PIVOTBY. Type the function name in quotes there: =GROUPBY(Sheet1!B2:B13,Sheet1!E2:E13,"SUM") returns the same three regional totals plus a total row. Excel writes the same formula with a bare SUM, which GridCraft doesn't accept yet; our guide to XLOOKUP and newer functions lists the other differences.

Save it, and check before you share

Click Save in the title bar or press Ctrl/⌘+S. The workbook downloads as .xlsx with the PivotTable and its cache, so it opens again here with the field list intact. The browser version has no autosave, so save before you close the tab.

GridCraft is alpha software, and PivotTables saved by it haven't been checked against Excel by its developers yet. If the file goes to someone who will refresh the report in Excel, open it there once first. Large sources are limited by the memory of one browser tab, and text in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew or Thai shows as empty boxes in the browser; the desktop app handles both better.

Once the report looks right, the Spreadsheet AI panel can explain what it shows, and exporting the sheet as a PDF gives you something to attach to an email.