Hardcoded Value Detector

Name: Hardcoded Value Detector
Availability: InStock

Finds the numbers typed over your formulas in Google Sheets™. Free to check. Catches the first and last cell of a series, which is exactly where a pasted value hides.

New here? The step-by-step guide runs the whole thing on a worked example.

Getting the add-on

Get it on the Google Workspace™ Marketplace, or install it from inside Google Sheets™: Extensions › Add-ons › Get add-ons, search for Hardcoded Value Detector, and press Install.

Using Excel? The same key works in the Excel add-in.

Support

Email support@appgarden.co.uk. Include the browser you are on, whether your account is a Gmail™ or a Workspace one, and what the sidebar showed. If a scan reported something you believe is wrong, the spreadsheet itself is the most useful thing you can send — but only send one you are content to share, and see the privacy notice first.

Replies are best-effort, usually within a few working days. There is no phone line.

Using it

Open the spreadsheet you want to check, then Extensions › Hardcoded Value Detector › Open detector. The sidebar lists what it found on the active sheet, and explains each one. Click a finding to jump to the cell.

A value pasted over a formula. A column of formulas with a number sitting in the middle of it — or, more often, at the top or the bottom. Sheets has no inconsistent-formula check at all, so nothing else will flag this.
A constant inside a formula. =B2*1.2 rather than =B2*$F$1. The number is real and the answer looks right until the rate changes.

There is no score. The sidebar reports two checks and what they found, and a sheet with findings never reads as clean. Array-formula output (ARRAYFORMULA, FILTER and friends) is deliberately ignored: those cells hold values but no formulas, and flagging them would be wrong.

Free and paid

Checking the active sheet and reading the explanations are free, and stay free. The whole-spreadsheet scan, the guided fix and the export are paid.

Undo is free in every tier, always. It is not a paid feature, it does not lapse with a licence, and it keeps working after one is cancelled. An add-on that can write to your spreadsheet but charges to reverse it would be indefensible.

A Pro licence covers three seats, shared across Excel and Google Sheets™. Team licences are a seat count, not a different feature set: team unlocks exactly what Pro unlocks. Prices and checkout.

Paddle is the merchant of record and takes the payment. The terms of service, the refund policy — a full refund within 30 days of any payment — and the privacy notice set out the rest.

Your licence key

Keys are shown on screen at the end of checkout and emailed to the address you paid with. Keep the page, or paste the key straight into the sidebar under Enter a licence key. It works in every spreadsheet on that Google account, and in the Excel add-in too. Lost it? Check that email, or email support with the address you paid on.

Entering the key stores an entitlement on your Google account. Re-entering the same key on the same account does not cost you a seat.

Known limits

Hidden sheets are skipped. A hidden tab is nearly always a lookup or a scratch calculation, and a finding against a sheet you cannot see is one you cannot act on.
A desktop browser only. Editor add-ons do not run in the Sheets mobile apps.
A run of formulas carrying two different shapes is treated as deliberate variation and gets no finding at all. Suppressing a real problem is better than offering to overwrite a number somebody meant to type.
Cells filled by an array formula are ignored, even when a typed number sits directly against the spill — telling the two apart is not possible, and staying quiet is safer than offering to overwrite computed output.
A sheet of more than 2,000,000 cells is not checked. The sidebar names the sheet and says so, and every other sheet is still checked. A grid stretched by one stray cell far from the data counts at its full size, so clearing that cell usually brings the sheet back in.
The sidebar lists the 200 most serious findings and says how many more there are. The report tab has every one.
A whole number that is a count, position or mode rather than a value is not reported: the digits in ROUND(x,2), the column in VLOOKUP(…,3,FALSE), the 9 in SUBTOTAL(9,…), a ^2. A year in DATE(2026,…) still is, because a typed year is exactly what goes stale.
A fix on a protected cell is refused with a plain message, and the sheet is left untouched. If the cell changed after the scan — another editor, another tab — the fix refuses that too: scan again first.

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Your data

Nothing in your spreadsheet leaves Google. The add-on talks to one server, and only about your licence key. Details in the privacy notice.

Google, Google Sheets™ and Google Workspace™ are trademarks of Google LLC. Excel is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Hardcoded Value Detector is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google or Microsoft.