Volunteo or a spreadsheet?
The shared spreadsheet is every organiser's first tool, and it works — up to a point. Here is where that point is, and what changes after it.
What a spreadsheet does very well
It is free, everyone knows how to use it, it requires no decision, and it bends to any way of working in thirty seconds. For twenty volunteers on a single day, with one person holding the list, there is nothing to add: a spreadsheet is enough, and we will say so.
Where it starts to cost you
A spreadsheet does not suddenly become bad; it becomes expensive in time, and always for the same reasons:
- The typing is yours. Applications arrive by email, by text, through Facebook, and somebody copies them across. With the sign-up form, the volunteer enters their own details, once, in a form that asks your questions.
- Nobody checks availability. Assigning someone to a shift they said they could not do is the most common mistake and the longest to unpick. The tool refuses it (availability checking).
- Two managers cannot work at once without treading on each other. Here, each team leader has rights over their own scope (teams and positions).
- Writing to a subset is manual work. "Everyone on the bar on Sunday afternoon" is a filter, not a copy-paste of addresses (email campaigns).
- The volunteer phones you. With nowhere to look, they call the night before. With an account, they have their own page, up to date, on their phone.
- Next year it all starts again. A spreadsheet does not re-run: you duplicate it and clear it by hand. A new edition carries over teams, positions, hours and volunteers.
And what a spreadsheet will never do
Badges printed in batches with photo and QR code, documents generated from a Word template for each volunteer, meals and drinks deducted by scanning the badge, a sign-up link of its own for a partner organisation: those are not missing columns, they are different tools.
The switch, in practice
It pays for itself at around thirty to fifty volunteers, or sooner if your event runs over several days, if several people co-organise it, or if it comes back every year. Below that, stay with your spreadsheet: the first eleven volunteers are free anyway, so you can try without deciding anything.
And you do not start from nothing: your existing list imports, and everything you put in comes back out as Excel or CSV, at any time.
Frequently asked questions
Can we import our existing spreadsheet?
Yes. The volunteer import takes a list with the usual columns; imported people receive a login link and fill in what is missing themselves.
What if we want to leave?
Every screen exports to Excel or CSV, filtered as you see it: volunteers, assignments, availability, answers to your questions. There is no commitment and no subscription to cancel.
What does it cost compared with a free spreadsheet?
The first eleven volunteers on an event's first edition are free, then billing is per accepted volunteer, paid once, with a €10 minimum order. The detail is on the pricing page.
Written by the publisher of Volunteo and checked on 18 September 2026. What is said here about another solution comes from what its own publisher makes public; we do not reproduce any competitor's price, and we invite you to check with them before deciding.
Other comparisons
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