How to use MAXIFS in Excel & Google Sheets: Pro Guide

If you run a sales team, a performance agency, or a lean operations team, MAXIFS is one of the fastest ways to answer a deceptively simple question: “What’s the biggest X where Y and Z are true?”.

Used well, it powers dashboards like:

• Largest deal by rep this quarter
• Highest ROAS campaign for a given client
• Biggest invoice per region where status = Paid
• Latest date a workflow step was completed

Below we’ll walk through practical ways to use MAXIFS in Excel and Google Sheets, then show how to automate and finally scale the whole process with AI agents.

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1. Manual ways to use MAXIFS in Excel & Google Sheets

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1.1 Understand the basic syntax

In Excel, MAXIFS looks like this:

=MAXIFS(max_range, criteria_range1, criteria1, [criteria_range2, criteria2], ...)

• max_range: the numbers you want the maximum from (e.g., deal amounts)
• criteria_range1: the range you’re filtering on (e.g., rep names)
• criteria1: the condition (e.g., a specific rep name)
• Additional criteria_ranges and criteria let you stack multiple conditions.

Official Excel doc: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/maxifs-function-dfd611e6-da2c-488a-919b-9b6376b28883

In Google Sheets, MAXIFS uses the same idea, but with a slightly different order:

=MAXIFS(criteria_range1, criterion1, [criteria_range2, criterion2, ...])

Official Google Sheets doc: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/7014145

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1.2 Find the biggest deal per rep (Excel example)

Imagine this table in Excel:

• A: Rep
• B: Region
• C: Deal Amount
• D: Close Date

Goal: Max deal for rep "Jordan".

1. Click an empty cell, e.g., F2.
2. Enter: =MAXIFS(C2:C500, A2:A500, "Jordan")
3. Press Enter. You now see Jordan’s largest deal.

Add a second condition – only closed this quarter:

1. Add quarter info in column E (e.g., "Q1-2026").
2. In G2 (for Q1-2026), use: =MAXIFS(C2:C500, A2:A500, "Jordan", E2:E500, "Q1-2026")

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1.3 Find top-performing campaigns (Google Sheets example)

Columns:

• A: Campaign Name
• B: Channel
• C: ROAS
• D: Client

Goal: Highest ROAS for client "Acme" on Meta.

1. In a new summary sheet, click cell G2.
2. Type: =MAXIFS(C2:C1000, D2:D1000, "Acme", B2:B1000, "Meta")
3. Press Enter. You’ve got the winning campaign’s ROAS.

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1.4 Use logical operators and OR-style logic

You can filter with operators:

• Greater than 5000: ">5000"
• Less than or equal to 100: "<=100"
• Not equal to "Cancelled": "<>Cancelled"

Example: largest deal over 5k in EMEA region:

=MAXIFS(C2:C500, C2:C500, ">5000", B2:B500, "EMEA")

For OR-type logic (e.g., region is "EMEA" or "APAC"), MAXIFS evaluates each criteria pair as an AND, so you mimic OR using two MAXIFS wrapped in MAX:

=MAX(MAXIFS(C2:C500, B2:B500, "EMEA"), MAXIFS(C2:C500, B2:B500, "APAC"))

Now you’ve covered the core manual patterns.

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2. No-code automation: let tools drive MAXIFS

Manual MAXIFS is fine for one-off analysis. But agencies and sales orgs run the same logic weekly or daily. Here’s how to set up low-maintenance automation.

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2.1 Use Google Sheets as your live dashboard

Because Google Sheets is online and API-friendly, it’s perfect as the “single source of truth” for MAXIFS dashboards.

Example workflow for an agency:

1. Raw data tab – connect ad platforms via a tool like Supermetrics or native connectors so impressions, spend, conversions, ROAS land in a "Raw_Data" sheet.
2. Metrics tab – build MAXIFS formulas that reference Raw_Data; for example, for best ROAS per client: =MAXIFS(Raw_Data!E:E, Raw_Data!C:C, A2) where A2 is the client name in your summary tab.
3. Client dashboards – each client tab pulls from the Metrics tab.
4. Automation: schedule data pulls inside your connector; Sheets recalculates MAXIFS automatically.

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2.2 Zapier/Make: push inputs, pull results

Use Zapier, Make, or similar tools to:

• Push data in: When a deal is marked Closed-Won in your CRM, append a new row to your Google Sheet or Excel file in OneDrive.
• Pull summaries out: On a schedule, read the MAXIFS cells (e.g., “largest deal this month”, “top campaign”) and post them to Slack or email.

Example with Zapier:

1. Trigger: "New Closed-Won deal" in HubSpot.
2. Action: "Create Spreadsheet Row" in Google Sheets (add rep, region, deal size, date).
3. Another Zap: Scheduled daily trigger.
4. Action: "Lookup Spreadsheet Row" to read a cell containing the MAXIFS result.
5. Action: "Send Slack message" to the sales channel with the updated max deal.

No one re-builds formulas; the sheet is your logic engine; the automation platform just feeds and reads it.

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2.3 Excel in the cloud

If your team is Excel-first, store workbooks in OneDrive or SharePoint. Tools like Power Automate can then:

• Append rows automatically from systems
• Recalculate workbooks
• Send emails with key MAXIFS outputs

You still design the formulas in Excel; the no-code tool simply runs them on a schedule.

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3. AI agents: scaling MAXIFS beyond spreadsheets

Manual and no-code flows assume a human created the sheet, kept ranges aligned, and debugged formulas. That’s where work bottlenecks. An AI computer agent like Simular can behave more like a power analyst sitting beside you.

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3.1 Agent pattern: "Build my performance cockpit"

Story:

Your agency reports are a mess. Every Thursday, a strategist spends 3 hours:

• Exporting CSVs
• Cleaning columns
• Replacing header names
• Rebuilding the same MAXIFS logic in copied Sheets

With Simular running on your desktop:

1. The agent opens Chrome, logs into ad platforms, exports reports.
2. It opens Excel or Google Sheets, imports the CSVs, cleans columns, and normalizes naming.
3. It inserts or updates MAXIFS formulas using the official patterns from Microsoft and Google docs, ensuring ranges line up so you avoid #VALUE! errors.
4. It verifies results (e.g., by temporarily sorting raw data to confirm the max it picked).
5. It writes a short summary in a Google Doc: “Top campaign for Client X this week is Y with ROAS Z.”

You simply review and approve.

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3.2 Agent pattern: "Explain this number and watch for anomalies"

Simular’s strength is that it can:

• Open your workbook or Google Sheet
• Trace which ranges feed a MAXIFS result
• Compare that max to historical maxima
• Flag anomalies (e.g., “highest ROAS ever, but spend is too low to trust”).

The agent can run nightly, update a "Max_Monitor" sheet, and send alerts via email or Slack when a MAXIFS result changes beyond thresholds you define.

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Pros of AI-agent approach

• Eliminates repetitive exports, sheet setup, and formula wiring
• Scales to many clients, reps, or product lines without more headcount
• Transparent execution: every step and formula remains visible in Excel/Sheets

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Cons

• Needs a bit of upfront design: clean templates and clear instructions
• Best performance when your data model (tabs, headers) is consistent
• Requires initial testing and monitoring until you trust the agent fully

Once set up, though, your “spreadsheet analyst” never takes a day off, and your team can focus on interpreting the numbers, not hunting for them.