Short answer: use Google Sheets when your assets are simple, manual updates are tolerable, and you want full control. Use a net-worth app when the update routine gets stale, prices break, wallets multiply, or you no longer trust the final number.
Google Sheets is a great place to start. You can build exactly the view you want, add custom categories, calculate allocation, and keep a record outside any finance app. For stocks and funds, the GOOGLEFINANCE function can fetch current and historical securities data from Google Finance.
The trouble starts when your financial life stops being spreadsheet-shaped. Crypto prices may need separate data sources. Self-custody wallets have token balances across chains. Brokerages, retirement accounts, banks, and real estate all update on different schedules. Transfers can look like gains. Property values need assumptions. Eventually the spreadsheet does not just track net worth; it becomes a maintenance task.
When Google Sheets is the right choice
Stick with a spreadsheet if you want maximum control and the update process is still easy.
Sheets can work well when...
- You update net worth monthly or quarterly, not daily.
- You only have a few accounts and assets.
- You prefer manual entry over linking financial accounts.
- You want custom formulas, tags, allocation views, or assumptions.
- You are comfortable troubleshooting broken imports and formulas.
Where spreadsheets start breaking
The problem is rarely one missing formula. It is the pileup of small frictions that makes the number stale and half-trusted.
- Prices: stock prices may be easy, but crypto tokens, DeFi positions, and obscure assets are not.
- Coverage: one sheet has to represent banks, brokerages, retirement accounts, wallets, real estate, and debts.
- Transfers: moving money between accounts can accidentally look like a gain or loss.
- Manual updates: the sheet is only as current as your last login-and-copy session.
- Trust: once formulas get complex, it becomes harder to know whether the final number is right.
The crypto problem
Crypto makes the spreadsheet harder because balances do not live in one neat account. You may hold assets on exchanges, public wallets, multiple chains, staking contracts, lending protocols, or liquidity pools. A spreadsheet can track manually entered totals, but it will not automatically know whether a wallet picked up a new token, whether a token price is missing, or whether a DeFi position should count in the total.
For crypto investors, the key privacy rule is simple: a net-worth tracker should not need your private keys or seed phrase. Public wallet addresses are enough to read balances. If a tool asks for keys to track net worth, that is the wrong trust model.
When a net-worth app is better
A net-worth app becomes useful when the cost of maintaining the spreadsheet is higher than the value of having total control.
Spreadsheet advantage
- Total customization.
- No account linking required.
- Easy to audit formulas you wrote.
- Works for weird manual assets.
App advantage
- Automatic read-only syncing.
- Wallet and account coverage.
- Fewer stale numbers.
- Cleaner view of what changed.
Where Ascend fits
Ascend is built for the moment when your spreadsheet still works in theory but feels annoying in practice. It brings brokerages, banks, 401(k)s, real estate, and keyless on-chain crypto into one private net-worth number. The goal is not to take away your control; it is to remove the update ritual that keeps making the number stale.
If you love spreadsheets, keep exporting your data. If you hate maintaining the spreadsheet, Ascend is the cleaner next step.
Bottom line: Sheets are great for control. Net-worth apps are better when freshness, coverage, and trust become the bigger problem.
Helpful context: Google's official Sheets documentation says GOOGLEFINANCE fetches current or historical securities information, but notes that quotes may be delayed, some attributes may not work for all symbols, and international exchange support is limited. See Google's GOOGLEFINANCE documentation.