Most asset-heavy operators run pricing, margin defense, and dispatch math on Excel — usually a 14-tab pricing model maintained by one analyst, and Friday-night reconciliations. We've worked inside those spreadsheets. This page is honest about where they win and where they break.
Spreadsheets are not the enemy. They are the universal first answer. Every operator who runs Allometry today started in Excel. Many will keep parts of their model in Excel after they sign.
Where spreadsheets break: the moment you need the same number in three places at once. A repricing decision needs to update the quote, the dispatch board, the renewal calendar, and the audit log simultaneously. Spreadsheets can't. Allometry can. That's the line.
This page is for operators who have outgrown Excel but haven't yet found the right replacement. We're not asking you to give up the model — we're asking you to let the model live in one place.
No false framing. Spreadsheets do some things better than any SaaS tool. Here's the honest split.
| Job to be done | Spreadsheets | Allometry |
|---|---|---|
| Where spreadsheets win | ||
| Ad-hoc modeling · one-off scenarios | ✓ fastest tool ever invented | — not the use case |
| CFO-facing model the board trusts | ✓ familiar, auditable line-by-line | ~ Allometry can export to your model |
| Zero implementation cost | ✓ | ~ 15-min OAuth · founder rate |
| Where spreadsheets break | ||
| Same number in 3 places at once | — breaks at scale | ✓ canonical graph |
| Live cost from ERP (daily) | — manual refresh | ✓ Cost Engine |
| Margin enforcement at quote time | — after-the-fact only | ✓ Margin Protect |
| Address-level scoring · 600+ addresses | — Excel breaks ~10K rows | ✓ canonical graph |
| Multi-user concurrent decisions | — last-save-wins | ✓ multi-user · audit trail |
| Audit trail for SOC 2 / lender DD | — version chaos | ✓ hash-chained · Control & Governance |
| Custom agents · automate the repetitive | — macros at best | ✓ Pulse Workflows |
Single-analyst dependence on a 14-tab pricing model is the canonical failure mode. When she leaves, the model is fossilized. Allometry makes the math executable. The decisions live in markdown SOPs. Forkable, diff-able, reviewable.
Estimate vs. actual reconciliations happen weekly or monthly because nothing connects to anything else automatically. Allometry catches variance the day it happens — not the quarter it lands in.
If a re-financing or roll-up question requires three weeks of Excel work and a junior consultant, you're past the spreadsheet ceiling. Allometry exports that report in 90 seconds — because the graph already knows.
The point isn't to throw away your spreadsheet. It's to make the math live in one place — and give your CFO a model they still trust on Excel when they need to model a one-off.
Your 14-tab pricing spreadsheet. We map every formula into Allometry's canonical schema.
Connect ERP, CRM, FSM. The spreadsheet's manual joins become live ones.
Run Allometry alongside the spreadsheet for 30 days. Reconcile. CFO signs off.
The model can still be exported to Excel anytime. The spreadsheet stops being the system of record.
Email the 14-tab pricing spreadsheet (or a redacted version). We'll show you how it maps into Allometry's schema — without making you redo the model.