CoinGecko for Sheets vs CoinTable: Key or No Key? (2026)

CoinGecko for Sheets is CoinGecko's official Google Sheets add-on. You install it, paste a CoinGecko API key (a free Demo key or a paid Pro key) into its settings, and type =COINGECKO("BTC")Copy. CoinTable, a Google Sheets add-on for cryptocurrency prices, does the current-price part without a key: install it, type =COINTABLE("BTC")Copy, done. If you need a coin's price more than a year back, top-100 lists, on-chain lookups by contract address or NFT floor prices, CoinGecko for Sheets is the better tool. If you want current market data with nothing to set up, CoinTable is.

Full disclosure: we make CoinTable, so weigh our opinions accordingly. The CoinGecko facts are a different matter. Each one comes from CoinGecko's own documentation or pricing page, is marked "as of October 2026" and links to its source, so you can check us. And if you're still choosing between add-ons, GOOGLEFINANCE, IMPORTDATA and Apps Script, start with the guide to getting Bitcoin and crypto prices in Google Sheets, which compares all of them.

CoinGecko for Sheets vs CoinTable at a glance

As of October 2026, per CoinGecko's Google Sheets docs and API pricing page:

Two rows deserve a second look. CoinGecko's free allowance is bigger on paper: 10,000 calls against 300 updates. The units differ, though. A CoinTable update is one coin in one currency, every field of it counts once, and the same coin again within 6 hours is free, so fifty cells showing =COINTABLE("BTC")Copy cost one update. Still, if you refresh a big sheet many times a day, the Demo key gives you more room for free. That's just true.

The other row is the first one. With CoinGecko for Sheets you get one clever function. With CoinTable you get one boring one that spells out the field. Boring is easier to read six months later, but clever covers more ground.

How CoinGecko for Sheets works

Setup, per CoinGecko's docs as of October 2026, is three steps:

1. Install CoinGecko for Sheets from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
2. Authorize it. CoinGecko recommends ticking "Select all" on the permissions screen and warns that unticking any of them may cause errors.
3. Go to Extensions → CoinGecko → Settings & API Key, paste your key, pick your plan (Demo or Pro) and save.

Step 3 assumes you already have a key. If you don't, that's a detour: sign up at coingecko.com, open the developer dashboard, create a Demo key, copy it back. Five minutes if nothing goes sideways.

Then the formulas. The add-on uses what CoinGecko calls smart routing, so one function reads different kinds of input:

=COINGECKO("BTC")                    price by ticker
=COINGECKO("name:Ethereum")          price by coin name
=COINGECKO("id:solana")              price by CoinGecko API ID
=COINGECKO("base:0x...")             on-chain price by network and contract address
=COINGECKO("nft:pudgy-penguins")     NFT floor price
=COINGECKO("id:bitcoin", "2025-12-31")   price on a date (00:00 UTC)
=COINGECKO("top:100")                top 100 coins by market cap
Copy

The id: form is the one CoinGecko calls most reliable. Tickers collide (more than one coin uses some symbols), and a bare ticker goes to the coin with the largest market cap. You find a coin's API ID on its CoinGecko page. You can also ask for the top coins in a category with =COINGECKO("top:10:meme-token")Copy.

What the API key costs you

The key itself is free on the Demo plan. What it costs is setup, and a class of errors you'll only see with keys.

As of October 2026, CoinGecko's pricing page gives the Demo plan 10,000 call credits a month at up to 100 calls a minute, and asks Demo users to credit CoinGecko where they use the data. The add-on's docs list the errors you'll run into, and they're the usual API suspects:

• 429: Rate Limit Exceeded. Too many calls in a minute. CoinGecko's error and rate-limit page adds that "rate limit errors may occur due to shared IP addresses among Google Sheets users," and that failed calls count toward your limit too.
• 403: Invalid API Key. The key was mistyped or is no longer valid.
• #NAME? The formula isn't recognized, usually because the add-on isn't installed in this file or didn't load. CoinGecko's fix: check that CoinGecko shows up under Extensions and reload the tab.

When something fails, Extensions → CoinGecko → View Error Logs opens a sheet with the raw API responses. Handy, if you're comfortable reading API responses.

Freshness is the other thing to know. CoinGecko's own docs say Google Sheets caches formula results for 1 to 2 hours and point you to Refresh All Data to force an update.

To be fair to CoinGecko: none of this is unusual. Any add-on built on a keyed API has these failure modes. If you already have a paid CoinGecko key for another project, the setup cost is close to zero and the rate limits are much higher.

How CoinTable does the same job

No key, no settings screen. Install CoinTable from the Google Workspace Marketplace, approve the permissions, and type:

=COINTABLE("BTC")
=COINTABLE("ETH/EUR")
=COINTABLE("SOL", "changepct", "7d")
=COINTABLE("XRP", "marketcap")
Copy

One formula covers every metric: a ticker in quotes or a cell reference like A2, then the attribute. Another currency goes after a slash, like "ETH/EUR", and USD is the default. "changepct" takes a period third (24h by default; 1h, 7d, 30d and 1y may need Plus) and returns a plain number, so 7.5 means +7.5%. The COINTABLE reference lists all 20 attributes.

A few honest notes so nothing surprises you later:

• Prices are up to 30 minutes old on Free and up to 5 minutes on Plus. It's a tracking tool, not a trading terminal.
• Prices refresh when you press Refresh. On Plus they also refresh when an editor opens the file, and you can turn on auto-refresh every hour.
• Errors use no updates, so a typo'd ticker costs nothing.
• Free is 300 updates a month. That's a 10-coin watchlist refreshed once a day for a month. Heavier use is what Plus is for.

When CoinGecko for Sheets is the better choice

We'd point you to CoinGecko's add-on, not ours, in these cases:

You need a price on a specific date. Year-end values, the price on the day you bought, a monthly series for a tax worksheet. =COINGECKO("id:bitcoin", "2025-12-31")Copy does it in one cell. CoinTable has prices on a date only on Plus, and only for the last year.

You screen the market rather than track a list. =COINGECKO("top:100")Copy drops a ranked table into your sheet. With CoinTable you'd need to know the tickers first.

Your coins live on-chain and not on big exchanges. A new DEX listing on Base, or a pool-only asset you know by its contract address and nothing else. CoinGecko's network-plus-address syntax covers that. CoinTable takes tickers, so if a coin doesn't have one it recognizes, you're out of luck.

You track NFT floors. CoinTable has nothing for NFTs.

You already pay for a CoinGecko API plan. You have the key, you have the higher limits. Use them.

When CoinTable is the better choice

• You don't want to make an account somewhere else and manage a key. This is the main reason people land here, honestly. "Without having to set up an API key" is a phrase we see in Reddit threads a lot.
• You want several metrics per coin. Market cap, 24h volume, rank, supply, all-time high, distance from the high, 24h high and low, change over 1h, 24h, 7d, 30d or 1y. One attribute each, readable at a glance.
• You think in a currency other than USD. =COINTABLE("BTC/GBP")Copy, =COINTABLE("ETH/JPY", "volume")Copy. 63 currencies on every plan, Free included.
• Privacy matters to you. Only each formula's ticker, currency, field and period or date leave Google Sheets, with an anonymous key. Your amounts and the rest of the spreadsheet stay where they are. CoinTable never collects your email.

Switching from =COINGECKO() to COINTABLE

If your sheet only uses current prices, the swap takes a find-and-replace. If it leans on dates more than a year back, lists or contract addresses, keep those cells on CoinGecko for Sheets. Both add-ons can live in the same file.

One thing to watch: id: names don't always match tickers. CoinGecko's id:solana is SOL in CoinTable, id:ripple is XRP. Fix those by hand.

And before you uninstall either add-on, copy any cells you want to keep and use Paste special → Values only. Formulas from a removed add-on stop recalculating and show an unknown-function error.

Coming from the old CRYPTOFINANCE add-on instead? The CRYPTOFINANCE migration guide has the formula mapping for that one. If you'd rather call CoinGecko's API directly with Apps Script or IMPORTDATA, read how the CoinGecko API works in Google Sheets, key and limits included.