PEARSON Function in Excel: Correlation (Pearson)

PEARSON Function in Excel: Correlation (Pearson) featured illustration

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min readUpdated 5 October 2026

StatisticsLevel: ExpertAvailable in: Excel 2007+

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

PEARSON returns the same value as CORREL: −1 to 1.

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Syntax

=PEARSON(array1, array2)
Argument What it means
array1, array2 Same length.

Examples

Example 1

=PEARSON(B2:B25, C2:C25)

Ad spend vs sales correlation.

PEARSON in practice

Where you will use it

  • Strength of a straight-line relationship
  • Ad spend vs leads
  • Validate a KPI pairing

Worked example

CaseFormulaResult
1=ROUND(PEARSON({1,2,3,4,5},INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A2,0)),4)1
2=ROUND(PEARSON({1,2,3,4,5},INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A3,0)),4)0.9984
3=ROUND(PEARSON({1,2,3,4,5},INDEX($H$1:$L$3,A4,0)),4)-1

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

MistakeWhat to do instead
Same as CORRELPEARSON and CORREL give identical results
Non-linear patternsA curve can have a low PEARSON yet a strong relation

CORREL · RSQ

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📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice workbook: Statistics advanced33 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
    ⬇ XLSX · 36 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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