Solver in Google Sheets: how to get it and use it, step by step

Does Google Sheets have a Solver?

Not built in. Excel ships Solver as a free add-in; Google Sheets has no menu or function that does the same. But you can get it for free in three ways, explained below: a script template like ours, the OpenSolver add-on, or downloading the sheet and using Solver in desktop Excel or LibreOffice.

Before installing anything, it helps to understand what a Solver does. It takes five minutes.

What an optimization problem is

Whenever you have to decide how much of several things to do without going over your resources, you have an optimization problem. It always has three parts:

• What you decide (the variables): how many units of each product to make, how many pallets to send down each route, how many people start their week each day.
• What you want to achieve (the objective): the highest profit, the lowest cost, the smallest team.
• What limits you (the constraints): machine hours, materials, budget, what customers order.

When the objective and the constraints are sums of quantities multiplied by fixed numbers, the problem is a linear program. That’s what Excel’s Solver solves with its “Simplex LP” method, and what our template solves. If some decisions must also be whole numbers (people, batches) or a yes or no (approve a project), it’s an integer program, and it can be solved too.

The example: a workshop with two parts

A workshop makes two parts, A and B. These are its numbers (made up, for learning):

The question: how many of each part should it make every week to earn the most? Written as a model:

If you think “make as many A as possible, it earns the most”, you get 40 parts A and 20 B: $2,200. That isn’t the best. The best is 20 parts A and 60 B: $2,600 a week. The chart below shows why.

See it in a chart: the best plan is at a corner

With two variables you can draw it. Every point in the green area is a plan the workshop can carry out. The dashed line joins plans with the same profit: the further from the origin, the more profit. The best plan is the last point of the area the line touches, and it’s always a corner.

Move the profits and watch the best corner jump:

With twenty variables you can’t draw it anymore, but the idea is the same. That’s what a Solver does: it finds the best corner without drawing anything.

How to use Solver in Google Sheets: the model in your sheet

The clearest layout is a table: one column per variable and one row per constraint. This is the “Workshop” tab of the template:

The three formulas you need are all the same function, SUMPRODUCT, which multiplies each number in one row by the matching number in another and adds everything up. Total profit, in D5:

That is, 40 × 20 + 30 × 60 = 2,600. Lathe hours used, in D16:

The $ signs lock the solution row so you can copy the formula down to every constraint. Slack is what’s left before the limit: =F16-D16 when the sign is ≤.

Three tips that save trouble:

• Same units across a row. If the limit is in hours, so are the coefficients; don’t mix hours and minutes.
• One constraint per row, with its sign written out. “At least” is ≥ and “at most” is ≤.
• Test the model by hand before solving. Type a solution you know into the “Solution” row and check that profit and hours come out as expected.

How to get Solver in Google Sheets: three free ways

There’s no switch to turn on: you have to add it to the sheet. These are the three free ways, from quickest to most work.

1. With the free template

It’s a Google Sheet with a script that uses the optimization engine Google includes in its spreadsheets. It comes with this workshop and a blank model for your own problem.

1. Make a copy. Click the button below, then “Make a copy”. It’s saved to your Google Drive.
2. Type in your numbers. Adapt the example tab or fill in “My model”.
3. Solve. From the menu, SolverSolve this tab. The first time, Google asks your permission to run the script in your copy; it’s explained step by step on the template page.
4. Read the result in the green “Solution” row and in “Objective”.

Make a copy of the template

2. With the OpenSolver add-on

OpenSolver is free and open source, and has long been the best-known option. To install it:

1. Open the add-on store. In your sheet, ExtensionsAdd-onsGet add-ons.
2. Search for “OpenSolver” and click InstallContinue.
3. Open it from the Extensions menu. A side panel opens where you set the objective cell, whether to maximize or minimize, the variable cells (the “Add” button) and the constraints.
4. Click “Solve Model”.

3. With Solver in desktop Excel or LibreOffice

If you have Excel installed, download the sheet with FileDownloadMicrosoft Excel (.xlsx) and open it there. Solver comes with Excel, but you have to enable it once in the add-in options. Then it’s on the Data tab: choose the objective cell, the changing cells, the constraints and the “Simplex LP” method. Note that Excel for the web has no Solver.

LibreOffice Calc is free and has its own Solver under ToolsSolver.

And if your company uses a paid Google Workspace plan (Business Standard or higher), Gemini in Sheets can also set up optimization problems since April 2026. Review the model it proposes as carefully as you’d review your own.

How to read the result

For the workshop, Solver answers: 20 parts A and 60 parts B, for $2,600 profit a week. The “Slack” column tells the rest of the story:

• Lathe and mill: slack 0. They’re at their limit. They’re the bottlenecks: what holds profit back.
• Orders for part A: slack 20. Twenty orders go unfilled, and it doesn’t matter: even if customers ordered more A, you wouldn’t earn more, because there are no hours to make them.

What is one more hour worth?

It’s the most useful question, and you answer it by solving again with the limit a little higher:

If you can buy extra hours, start with the mill, as long as an hour costs you less than $20. That value is called the shadow price, and it only holds for small changes: if you add many hours, another constraint becomes the one that binds and you need to solve again.

Common errors and what they mean

“No feasible solution” (infeasible)

No combination meets every constraint at once. It’s almost always a sign the wrong way round (≥ where ≤ belonged) or an impossible minimum: for example, a contract that requires more than the hours allow. Check the “at least” rows first.

“The objective can grow forever” (unbounded)

A constraint is missing. If nothing limits a variable that adds profit, Solver would make it infinite. It’s usually the maximum demand, the hours or the materials.

“I get decimals and I need whole numbers”

Mark those variables as integer (in the template, “Integer” in the “Type” row). Rounding isn’t enough: it can break a constraint or leave you far from the best result.

“The solution makes no sense”

Solver did its job on an incomplete model. Look for the missing constraint (whatever would stop that plan in real life) or mixed units in a row.

How to tell if your problem is linear

Your problem is linear if each variable only appears multiplied by a fixed number and added up. It stops being linear if:

• two variables are multiplied together (for example, price × quantity, if you decide both);
• there are powers, roots or divisions by a variable;
• a formula uses IF, MAX or MIN on the variables.

For nonlinear problems, desktop Excel’s Solver has the “GRG Nonlinear” method. Many “if I do this, then that” conditions can be written as linear ones with binary variables.

Frequently asked questions