The 3 Best Ways to Connect Salesforce to Google Sheets

Have you ever manually copied and pasted data from a Salesforce report into a Google Sheets spreadsheet? It takes forever, it’s a pain to update, and all it takes is one moment of human error to send your data integrity spinning into chaos.

The good news is that there are quite a few apps on the market designed to integrate Salesforce with Google Sheets and automate this work away. The bad news is that sifting through them all to figure out which ones are truly worthwhile is a tedious task of its own! Don’t worry – that’s what we’re here for.

We looked at the many Google Sheets/Salesforce integrations out there and found three that we’d happily recommend (one of which, full disclosure, we built ourselves). For those who need an integration that lives in Google Sheets, we’ll take a look at two popular apps available on the Google Workspace Marketplace: Salesforce Connector and Coefficient. For those who are in the market for a Salesforce app, we’ll check out the best Google Sheeets integration on the Salesforce AppExchange, our own Drive Connect. 

Even if you’re working on a budget of $0, we’ve got a solution to save your CTRL-V muscles from overtraining. Let’s go!

The Budget Buy: Salesforce Connector by Google

Developer: Google

Price: Free (!)

Best for: When you’re on a tight leash. If you don’t have the budget to spring for a paid option, or if your Google Workspace administrator won’t allow you to install third-party apps, this is the best solution for you.

Where to get it: Download and install it directly from the Google Workspace Marketplace.

What to know: Salesforce Connector is a free Google Workspace application that allows you to import, sync,  edit, and delete Salesforce data from a sidebar within Google Sheets. It’s a great solution for basic data sync needs, but it has a few limitations that may lead Google Sheets power users to look elsewhere for the perfect Salesforce integration.

(For our full review and breakdown of the app, check out our guide to connecting Salesforce to Google Sheets with Salesforce Connector.)

Pros:

• The price is right: Salesforce Connector is completely free, and it gets you a lot of bang for your nonexistent buck.  It’s definitely worth considering this app before jumping into the world of paid third-party solutions.
• It’s a Google Workspace native application: Salesforce Connector was developed and published by Google itself, meaning that you can install it even if your Google Workspace admin won’t allow you to install third-party Workspace apps.

Cons:

• Limited data sync functionality: Salesforce Connector allows you to schedule data sync from Salesforce to Google, but if you want to push data to Salesforce from Google, you’ll need to do it manually. You’re also limited in how frequently you can schedule a sync between the two systems, with a menu of preset intervals that range from every four hours to every 24 hours.
• Sheets get glitchy after a certain number of rows: Many users have reported that Sheets containing imported Salesforce data become slow and difficult to use once you hit a 2000-row threshold.

Salesforce Connector is completely free for organizations of any size. Learn more about Salesforce Connector in the Google Docs Help Center.

The Premium Google Sheets Sidebar: Coefficient

Developer: Coefficient

Price: $0-$99 per user/month

Best for: When you want to integrate data from multiple platforms into Google Sheets, and money is no object. Coefficient is our pick for the best Salesforce/Google Sheets integration on the Google Workspace Marketplace.

Where to get it: Download and install it directly from the Google Workspace Marketplace.

What to know: Coefficient is a Google Workspace application that allows you to sync and export data from Google Sheets (and Excel!)  to Salesforce and a plethora of other data sources. In addition to this core functionality, it’s got a pretty neat bag of tricks that includes prebuilt dashboards and templates for Sheets, up-to-the-minute automated notifications from Slack, and cool AI tricks powered by GPT Copilot.

There are a lot of Salesforce/Google Sheets integrations available on the Google Workspace Marketplace, including popular apps like G-Connector by Xappex and SyncWith, but when we looked at features, pricing, and user reviews, Coefficient came out at the head of the class.

Pros:

• Nice & easy: Salesforce Connector’s setup process and sidebar interface are pretty nice for a free app, but Coefficient’s are pretty nice, period. We were able to install the integration with just a couple of clicks, and its core data import and filtering features were intuitive and easy to use.

• Works with multiple data sources: If Google Sheets is the nexus of your data universe, this is the app for you. Coefficient allows you to import data not only from Salesforce, but from over 30 different data sources in the world of CRM, database management, data visualization, web analytics, and beyond.

• Fast, frequent automated data sync: If Google Connector’s limits on automated data sync were a dealbreaker for you, you’re in luck – Coefficient allows you to automatically refresh data as frequently as once per hour. You can also get pretty granular 

• Not-so-stupid AI tricks: Coefficient includes a few nifty AI tools that allow you to generate Google Sheets formulas, SQL queries, pivot tables, and charts with the power of GPT Copilot.

Cons:

• Freemium ain’t free: Coefficient offers a free plan that allows you to import up to 5,000 rows of data at a time, but to take full advantage of its features, you’ll need to shell out $99 per user per month.

• Pace yourself with those GPT queries: Free users are limited to 10,000 OpenAI API calls over the lifetime of their Coefficient account. Make those AI-generated pivot tables count, or get ready to open your wallet.

Coefficient Pro is free for 30 days with no credit card required. Learn more about Coefficient in the Coefficient Help Center.

The Salesforce-First Solution: Drive Connect

Developer: Appiphony

Price: $18 per user/month

Best for: When you want to work with Google Sheets and other Google Workspace documents without ever leaving Salesforce. Drive Connect is our pick for the best Salesforce/Google Sheets integration on the Salesforce AppExchange. (Yes, we’re biased, but we’re also right.)

What to know: If your primary workspace is Salesforce, this is the Google Workspace integration for you – it allows you to view, edit, create, and share Google Workspace files and folders from within your Salesforce environment. Not only can you generate Google Sheets documents with refreshable Salesforce data, you can embed Sheets on any record page, view and edit Sheets from a full-screen viewer inside Salesforce, automate the creation and organization of Sheets based on your organization’s business processes, share Google Sheets via email from within Salesforce, and more.

Drive Connect is crafted specifically to connect Salesforce with Google Workspace, making it a better option for Sheets-focused users than generalist integrations like Zapier. All of its features mentioned above work with Google Docs and Slides as well as Sheets – it’s a complete solution for connecting Google Drive with Salesforce.

Pros:

• Easy to set up, easy to use: Drive Connect is a complex, powerful application that happens to be a total breeze to set up and work with. Our Setup Wizard makes installation and configuration easy, and our Template Builder lets you build Google Sheets powered by live Salesforce data without ever writing a query or touching a line of code.
• Full integration into Salesforce environment: Drive Connect doesn’t just let you pull Salesforce data into Google Sheets – it lets you work in Google Sheets from within Salesforce. Use our Drive File Lightning component to embed Sheets files in any Salesforce record page, or use our Drive Links Lightning component to link, upload, view, and edit Sheets without ever leaving Salesforce.
• Works with entire Google Workspace suite: Salesforce Connector and Coefficient are built for Google Sheets alone, while Drive Connect integrates with the full suite of core Google Workspace apps. All our document generation, file linking, and automation features work with Google Docs and Google Slides as well as Google Sheets. 
• Affordability: At $18, Drive Connect’s monthly Enterprise plan is over 5x cheaper than Coefficient’s fully featured Pro plan. Better still, if all you need to do is link Drive files to Salesforce record pages, we can hook you up for just $6 per user per month.

Cons:

• No two-way data sync:  As an AppExchange app, Drive Connect assumes that Salesforce is your source of data truth across all platforms. That means that unlike the other solutions highlighted in this guide, it doesn’t allow you to push updated data from Google Sheets to Salesforce.
• No free plan: While Drive Connect is more affordable than many of its peers, it doesn’t offer a free plan for tiny organizations or one-off projects. (You can, however, get a 14-day free trial of the fully-featured app with no credit card required.) 

Again, Drive Connect is free for 14 days with no credit card required. Learn more about Drive Connect in the Drive Connect Help Center.

So which Google Sheets/Salesforce app is right for you? If you’ve got no money to throw at this problem, Google Connector is a great option, and it’s certainly a big step up from other zero-dollar solutions like exporting Salesforce reports to .csv or subjecting yourself to the ol’ copy-paste. If you want a top-of-the line Google Sheets add-on, it’s hard to beat Coefficient. And if you want to fully integrate the power of Google Sheets into your Salesforce org, there’s no better choice than Drive Connect.

They’re all great apps, but there’s only one you can get started with without leaving this tab. Why not schedule a demo or claim your free trial right now?