The Cheapest Way to Use AI in Excel
August 28, 2026 · 6 min read
As of today, EBITDAI has three plans. The Lite plan is $5/month and includes 100x more usage than free, on Meta Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor. The Pro plan is $15/month and includes 7.5x more usage than Lite across every model we run: Kimi k3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Gemini 3.8 Flash and both Meta Muse tiers, plus your own API keys for the providers and the QuickBooks, Campfire and Stripe connectors. Both paid plans keep their usage dedicated to Excel rather than shared with your chat and coding. Pay annually and both drop 20%: $48/year on Lite, which works out to $4/month, and $144/year on Pro, or $12/month. A Free plan (150 requests a week on Meta Muse Spark 1.3, where Meta trains on everything you send) lets you try EBITDAI before you pick one. All three are on the pricing page now.
Why the tokens cost so little
The math is simple: DeepSeek and Kimi price their tokens at a fraction of what the big labs charge, and in our published benchmark Kimi k3 matched Claude for Excel on all 30 tasks anyway. Cheap frontier tokens are the entire trick. And the usage buys finished work, complete builds like the ones in our 3-statement model walkthrough, not chat messages. Run out mid-month and you can buy extra usage on the spot; it never expires.
Compared with a $20 Claude subscription
Claude for Excel is a free add-in, but it needs a Claude Pro plan at $20/month to do real work, and that plan's usage is one shared pool across everything you do with Claude. Your Excel session competes with your chat and your coding. Public plan trackers put Claude Pro at roughly 45 messages per 5-hour window, and users report hitting the ceiling in minutes on large sheets. The full side-by-side is here.
Against that, EBITDAI's Lite plan is a quarter of the price at $5/month, and Pro is $15/month with a larger included allowance across every model. And there's a second difference that matters more than the money: your usage is only for Excel. Nothing else eats it. The same logic applies against Copilot at $30 a seat and ChatGPT's Excel workflow.
Add your own Kimi subscription and it stops being close
The Pro plan runs EBITDAI on your own provider account: Kimi, DeepSeek or Gemini. That flexibility is deliberate. A Kimi Code subscription is a flat $19/month with no per-token charges, and plan trackers show 300 to 1,200 calls per 5-hour window on tiers below the one we recommend. EBITDAI is the only Excel add-in that can run on it.
Stack that on the $15 Pro plan and you're at $34/month all-in for effectively unlimited modeling, with the plan's included usage sitting underneath as overflow for when the flat-rate window resets. This is where the usage stops being comparable and starts being lopsided: 300 to 1,200 calls per 5-hour window against Claude Pro's reported 45. That's the most cost-effective way to run EBITDAI all day, and it's a fraction of what the same volume costs on a Claude Max plan at $100 or $200 a month. The two-strategies post works the arithmetic through in full.
If you're still on the Kimi Code waitlist, a pay-as-you-go key from the Moonshot Open Platform runs the same k3 model today, at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output, with no waitlist and no approval step.
Which plan should you pick
Take the Lite plan at $5 if you want the best value and your work is everyday modeling: formulas, cleanup, schedules, updates to models that already exist. It runs Meta Muse Spark 1.3 on Meta's Contributor tier, the cheapest model on the menu, with 100x more usage than free. If you would rather bring your own key, the DeepSeek setup guide takes five minutes, and own keys come with Pro.
Take the Pro plan at $15 if you want the strongest model working out of the box. In our benchmark of 10 real modeling tasks run 30 times each, Kimi k3 passed 30 out of 30, matching Claude for Excel, at $0.11 of model cost per task. DeepSeek V4 passed 26 out of 30 on the same tasks, which is a good result at a fraction of the price, but k3 is the one that tied Claude. More on why we built on Kimi and how the providers price out against each other.
Either way you can switch models mid-session, and you can move up from Lite to Pro at any time, so the decision isn't permanent. Connecting either provider is the same handful of steps.
The price table, all in
| Setup | Monthly | What the usage buys |
|---|---|---|
| EBITDAI Lite plan | $5 ($4 annual) | 100x more usage than free, on Meta Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor |
| EBITDAI Pro plan | $15 ($12 annual) | 7.5x more usage than Lite across every model, Kimi k3 the model that matched Claude in our benchmark included, plus your own keys and the connectors |
| Pro plan + your Kimi Code sub | $34 all-in | Flat rate, 300-1,200 calls per 5-hour window, included usage as overflow |
| Claude for Excel | $20 (Pro) to $200 (Max) | One shared pool with chat and coding; ~45 messages per 5-hour window on Pro |
| Copilot in Excel | $30 per seat | Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, no model choice |
Competitor prices and limits are from public pricing pages and user reports as of August 2026. Full side-by-side breakdowns live on the comparison page.
The short version
$5 a month buys you an AI agent in Excel with 100x more usage than free included. $15 buys you every model on the menu, including the one that matched Claude. $34 buys you a flat-rate setup that no usage meter can interrupt. All three keep your usage out of a pool shared with chat and coding, and none of them ask you to hand your workbook to a model you didn't choose. If you're new to all of this, start with what AI in Excel actually does or just install the add-in.
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to use AI in Excel?
EBITDAI's Lite plan at $5/month, with 100x more usage than free, on Meta Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor included. On annual billing it is $48/year, or $4/month.
Is the usage a credit system?
No credits and no token math. Your remaining usage shows in the pane and refreshes every month. Run out mid-month and you can buy extra usage on the spot (it never expires), or move to Pro for 7.5x more usage than Lite across every model, your own provider keys and the connectors.
How does this compare with a $20 Claude subscription?
Claude for Excel is a free add-in but needs a Claude Pro plan at $20/month, and that plan's usage is one shared pool across chat, coding, and Excel. EBITDAI's Lite plan is a quarter of that price at $5/month, with 100x more usage than free, and Pro is $15/month with 7.5x more usage than Lite across every included model. Either way the usage is dedicated to Excel, not shared with chat and coding. To go far past Claude Pro on volume, layer a Kimi Code subscription on Pro ($34 all-in).
How do I get significantly more usage than a $20 Claude plan?
Layer your own Kimi Code subscription on top of the $15 Pro plan. Kimi Code is a flat $19/month with no per-token charges and plan trackers show 300 to 1,200 calls per 5-hour window, against Claude Pro's reported 45 messages. That is $34/month all-in for effectively unlimited modeling, with the plan's included usage underneath as overflow. EBITDAI is currently the only Excel add-in that can run on a Kimi Code subscription.
Which plan should I pick?
Take the $5 Lite plan for best value on everyday modeling: it runs Meta Muse Spark 1.3 on Meta's Contributor tier, the same training terms as the free plan, with 100x more usage than free. Take the $15 Pro plan if you want Kimi k3, the model that matched Claude for Excel at 30/30 in our published benchmark, working out of the box (it runs DeepSeek too). Pro also carries 7.5x more usage than Lite across every included model, your own API keys for the providers, and the QuickBooks, Campfire and Stripe connectors. You can switch models mid-session, and the free plan (150 requests a week on Meta Muse Spark 1.3, where Meta trains on everything you send) lets you try EBITDAI before choosing.
Keep reading
- We benchmarked EBITDAI against Claude for Excel , 10 tasks, 30 runs each, and where the $0.11 per build comes from.
- Unlimited AI in Excel: the two cheapest strategies , flat-rate versus metered, with the full math.
- How to use DeepSeek in Excel and how to use a Kimi Code subscription in Excel , the bring-your-own-key setup guides.
- Kimi pay-as-you-go keys now work in Excel and the Kimi Code waitlist guide.
- Best AI for Excel in 2026 and AI model pricing for financial modeling.
- One app, every model , why EBITDAI stays model-agnostic.