Rows

What it is

Rows is a spreadsheet that can fetch its own data. Instead of exporting a CSV from your analytics, your ads platform or your database and pasting it in, you connect the source and the data lands in cells, refreshing on a schedule. Everything else behaves like a spreadsheet, so the skill you already have transfers.

On top sit AI Analyst, which answers questions about a table conversationally, AI Vision for pulling data out of PDFs and images, and automated cell enrichment from connected integrations. Automation frequency is the tier ladder: manual on Free, daily on Plus, every minute on Pro.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits people who already live in spreadsheets and whose real cost is the manual export-paste-clean cycle every week or month. Marketing reports, simple dashboards and recurring analyses that pull from several tools are the natural use.

It is a weaker fit for structured operational data with many collaborators, where a database tool like Airtable offers field types and interfaces that a spreadsheet cannot. And for querying a real database with proper permissions and shared definitions, Metabase is the right instrument.

Pricing

Rows is freemium. The free plan needs no credit card and includes unlimited spreadsheets, 5 AI tasks per month, manual data import only, 10 integration accounts, 3 guest members, 1MB file imports, 7-day version history and 500 API calls per month. Plus is $6 per user per month billed annually, or $8 monthly, and moves automation to daily. Pro is $59 per month plus $6 per user billed annually, or $79 plus $8 per user monthly, and allows refreshes every minute. Enterprise is custom.

Note the shape of Pro: a platform fee plus a per-user fee, which is a different curve from the pure per-seat pricing elsewhere in this category. And the free plan's manual-import limit is the real constraint, since automatic refresh is the reason to be here.

Set it up

Official guide: Importing CSV, XLSX, XLS and GSheets files

1. Create a Rows account on the Free plan, which needs no credit card. Click "Sign up with Google", or fill in the form with your name, email address and password, accept the terms of use and click "Sign Up". With a password, open the email from Rows and click "Confirm Email". Your account is now confirmed.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to create your first workspace, the place where your spreadsheets live. Your first workspace is now ready.
3. In the tool you use now, find its export or download option and export last month's numbers as a CSV, XLSX or XLS file, which is a plain spreadsheet file. Keep the file under 1MB, the import limit on the Free plan. You now have that file saved on your computer.
4. In your workspace, click "Import" in the top-right of the screen. Upload your file, choose a destination folder and wait for the import confirmation. Click "Open". You now see your numbers as a table.
5. Rebuild one total from your old report. Select a cell and type =SUM, then click SUM in the list that appears. The list shows what each part needs. Enter cell references such as A1 and A2, separated by commas. The cell now shows the total.
6. Click the ✨ icon to open the AI Analyst, an assistant that works on your spreadsheet when you type a request in plain English. Name the column you mean, for example: "Add up the Sales column for each region." The Free plan has 5 AI tasks per month. Check the answer against your own total before you trust it. The AI Analyst's answer now appears.
7. Next month, click the dropdown arrow next to the spreadsheet's name and select "Import". Upload the new file and keep the dropdown on "Insert new table(s)". You now see the new numbers as a second table in the same spreadsheet.

When this works, your monthly numbers sit in one Rows spreadsheet, with a total you built yourself and one AI answer you checked by hand.

On Plus ($6/user/mo billed annually ($8 monthly)): daily automation, which refreshes your data every day so you do not import files by hand.

Strengths and limitations

The strength is removing the export step while keeping the spreadsheet. Live data in a familiar interface is a small idea that saves a recurring hour, and the price at $6 per user per month is modest.

The limitations are scope and verification. It is a spreadsheet, so it inherits spreadsheet weaknesses: no enforced field types, fragile formulas, limited multi-person structure. Free is manual-only, which excludes the main benefit. And AI answers over your data are confident by construction, so spot-check them, because a wrong number in a report is worse than no report.