CORREL Function in Excel: How Strongly Two Things Move Together

CORREL Function in Excel: How Strongly Two Things Move Together featured illustration

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min readUpdated 28 September 2026

StatisticalLevel: ExpertAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. CORREL in practice
  5. Where you will use it
  6. Worked example
  7. Mistakes people make
  8. Related functions
  9. Continue learning

CORREL returns a number between −1 and 1: near 1 means both rise together, near −1 means one falls as the other rises, near 0 means no linear link.

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Syntax

=CORREL(array1, array2)
Argument What it means
array1, array2 Two ranges of equal size.

Examples

Example 1

=CORREL(B2:B25, C2:C25)

Ad spend vs sales across 24 months.

💡 Correlation is not causation: ice-cream sales and AC sales correlate because of summer, not because one causes the other.

CORREL in practice

Where you will use it

  • Do ad spend and sales move together?
  • Rain vs umbrella sales
  • Check two KPIs for a relationship

Worked example

Five observations per pair, stored beside the table.

CasePairFormulaResult
1Ad spend vs sales=ROUND(CORREL(INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A2,0),INDEX($N$1:$R$3,A2,0)),3)0.999
2Rainy days vs umbrellas=ROUND(CORREL(INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A3,0),INDEX($N$1:$R$3,A3,0)),3)0.994
3Unrelated numbers=ROUND(CORREL(INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A4,0),INDEX($N$1:$R$3,A4,0)),3)-0.152

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

MistakeWhat to do instead
Correlation is not causationA third factor can drive both
OutliersOne extreme point can create or hide a correlation

RSQ · SLOPE · LINEST

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📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice workbook: Statistics basics22 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
    ⬇ XLSX · 34 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

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