How to Calculate Growth Rate in Excel (with Formulas & Examples)

The basic growth rate formula

Growth rate is the percentage change from an old value to a new value.

=(new - old) / old

Example:
=(B2 - A2) / A2         → format the cell as %

Month-over-month and year-over-year growth

If your data is in a single column (one row per period), reference the previous row:

Month-over-month:
=(B3 - B2) / B2

Year-over-year (12 months apart):
=(B14 - B2) / B2

Guard against divide-by-zero:
=IFERROR((B3 - B2) / B2, 0)

Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)

CAGR is the smoothed annual growth rate between a starting and ending value over N years.

=(End / Start) ^ (1 / Years) - 1

Example — revenue grew from 100k to 250k over 5 years:
=(250000 / 100000) ^ (1/5) - 1     → 20.11%

Using RRI (Excel 2013+):
=RRI(5, 100000, 250000)

Average growth rate across periods

For a series of period-over-period growth rates, use AVERAGE for the arithmetic mean or GEOMEAN for the compounded mean (more accurate for growth).

Arithmetic average:
=AVERAGE(C2:C13)

Geometric mean (add 1 first, subtract 1 at the end):
=GEOMEAN(1 + C2:C13) - 1     → enter with Ctrl+Shift+Enter in older Excel

Handling negative or zero starting values

The standard formula breaks when the starting value is 0 or negative. Two safe options:

• Return "n/a" when the base is 0: =IF(A2=0,"n/a",(B2-A2)/A2)
• Use absolute value in the denominator: =(B2 - A2) / ABS(A2)

Format the result as a percentage

• Select the cell → Ctrl + Shift + %
• Or apply a custom format: 0.0%;[Red]-0.0%
• Multiply by 100 only if you want a number, not a % — don't do both.

Ready-made templates with growth rate built in

Skip the setup — these Sehnna templates already include growth-rate columns, YoY comparisons and CAGR:

• KPI Dashboard Template
• SaaS Metrics Dashboard
• Profit & Loss Statement
• Cash Flow Statement
• Ecommerce Profit Calculator