Color Brightness in Google Sheets & Excel

What this pulls

Check color contrast by the row. Returns WCAG luminance, light/dark and a recommended text color — Sheets or Excel.

It's one of 250+ live sources you reach with a single =VERVE() function — served from APIVerve's production data engine, billed at 1 credit per resolved cell, and refreshed on whatever cadence you set. No API keys to wrangle, no scripts, no exports.

See it in a cell

A real example — the input you type, and the values you can pull from it. Click any cell to see the formula behind it.

colorbrightness.xlsxsample data

B2fx=VERVE("colorbrightness", A2, "field", "rgb.r")

Hex

Rgb › R

Rgb › G

Rgb › B

Is light

FF5733

255

FALSE

click any cell to see its formula1 credit / cell

Ways to use it

Look up facts in the grid

Fill =VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.r") beside your keys and pull the reference value for each into its own cell — one trusted lookup per row.

Standardize a dataset

Replace hand-maintained lookup tables with a live one so your reference values never drift out of date.

Join to your data

Use Color Brightness's output as a lookup column your other formulas can VLOOKUP or reference directly.

Use it in your sheet

The same function works in both apps — install once, sign in with your key, and type it into any cell.

Google SheetsAdd-on

Install from the Workspace Marketplace, then drop the formula into a cell. Autocomplete suggests the source and its fields.

=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.r")

Microsoft ExcelAdd-in

Same source, same arguments, same key — in Excel on desktop, the web, or mobile. Excel namespaces it as VERVE.CALL. Drag to fill a whole column.

=VERVE.CALL("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.r")

Fields you can pull

Add a field name as the last argument to land just that value in the cell.

Rgb
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb")
Rgb › R
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.r")
Rgb › G
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.g")
Rgb › B
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb.b")
LuminancePremium
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "luminance")
Perceived brightnessPremium
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "perceived_brightness")
YiqPremium
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "yiq")
Is light
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "is_light")
Is dark
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "is_dark")
Brightness category
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "brightness_category")
Recommended text colorPremium
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "recommended_text_color")
Contrast ratio with whitePremium
=VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "contrast_ratio_with_white")

Premium marks data included on paid plans. On the Free plan a marked field is withheld and a marked input is ignored — either way the cell reads #PREMIUM(name) instead of a value, so a gated answer can never be mistaken for a real one. Everything unmarked works on every plan. Compare plans

Color Brightness, answered

Everything you need to wire it into a sheet.

How do I pull Color Brightness into Google Sheets?

Install the VerveSheets add-on, sign in once with your key, and type =VERVE("colorbrightness", "FF5733", "field", "rgb") into any cell. The "field" argument names the value you want back, so the cell resolves to a single number or string you can chart, sort, or feed into another formula.

What data can I pull from Color Brightness?

Color Brightness returns rgb, rgb.r, rgb.g, rgb.b and is_light, plus 2 more — name any one of them as the "field" argument and that value lands in the cell. Leave the field out and the whole record spills into a two-column table instead.

Which Color Brightness fields need a paid plan?

luminance, perceived_brightness, yiq and recommended_text_color, plus 1 more are included from the Starter plan up. On the Free plan the cell returns #PREMIUM(field) rather than a wrong or empty value, so it's always obvious which one to upgrade for. Every other field works on Free.

Can I fill a whole column of Color Brightness at once?

Yes. Put your hex values down a column and point the formula at the range — A2:A50 instead of A2 — and one call returns a value for every row. Dragging the formula down works too, but the range form is a single billed call per column rather than one per cell.

How many credits does each Color Brightness cell cost?

Each resolved cell costs 1 credit. A cell only re-bills when it actually refreshes, so a sheet you aren't touching doesn't keep charging.

Does Color Brightness work in Excel as well as Google Sheets?

Yes — same arguments, same key, same fields. Excel namespaces custom functions, so the call is =VERVE.CALL() there and =VERVE() in Google Sheets; nothing else about it changes.

Color Brightness

Look up facts in the grid

Standardize a dataset

Join to your data

Color Brightness, answered

Put Color Brightness in your next spreadsheet. Add the extension, paste the formula, and the cell keeps itself current.

Scaling up?