Purchasing Power in Google Sheets & Excel

What this pulls

Adjust dollars for inflation in a cell. Returns the real value between two years — 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.

purchasingpower.xlsxsample data

C2fx=VERVE("purchasingpower", A2, B2, "field", "originalAmount")

Amount

From

Original Amount

Original Period

Adjusted Amount

100

1990

100

1990-01

242.31

click any cell to see its formula1 credit / cell

Ways to use it

Live financial model

Drop =VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount") into a cell and your model reads the latest number every refresh — no more pasting figures from a browser tab into a stale sheet.

Track a whole watchlist

Fill a column beside your list of tickers or currencies and every row updates together, so a hundred-row watchlist stays current on its own.

Dashboards that don't rot

Point a chart at the cell =VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount") feeds and the chart re-draws as the data moves — a finance dashboard that's live instead of a Monday-morning snapshot.

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("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount")

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("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount")

Optional inputs

Tune the result by adding name=value before the field argument — in any order. Leave one out and its default applies.

to
Ending year (YYYY format). Omit for current.
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "to", "2024")

Fields you can pull

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

Original Amount
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount")
Adjusted Amount
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "adjustedAmount")
Inflation RatePremium
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "inflationRate")
Cpi FromPremium
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "cpiFrom")
Cpi ToPremium
=VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "cpiTo")

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

Purchasing Power, answered

Everything you need to wire it into a sheet.

How do I pull Purchasing Power into Google Sheets?

Install the VerveSheets add-on, sign in once with your key, and type =VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "field", "originalAmount") 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 Purchasing Power?

Purchasing Power returns originalAmount and adjustedAmount — 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.

Can I narrow what Purchasing Power returns?

Yes — Purchasing Power takes "to" as optional inputs. They go in as "name", value pairs after the required ones, in any order, so =VERVE("purchasingpower", 100, "1990", "to", "2024") shapes the result without changing anything else.

Which Purchasing Power fields need a paid plan?

inflationRate, cpiFrom and cpiTo 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 Purchasing Power at once?

Yes. Put your amount 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 Purchasing Power 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 Purchasing Power 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.

How current is Purchasing Power?

It draws on Since 1947, served live from APIVerve's production data engine, and cells recalculate on the cadence you choose — every open, hourly, or every 30 minutes.

Purchasing Power

Live financial model

Track a whole watchlist

Dashboards that don't rot

Purchasing Power, answered

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

Scaling up?