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Shibutz vs spreadsheets for building class lists
Almost every school starts class placement in a spreadsheet, and plenty of them should stay there. Here is a straight comparison of where a sheet holds up and where a placement engine starts to pay for itself.
Last reviewed July 13, 2026. Every Shibutz claim below links to a first-party source, and the spreadsheet side describes general Excel and Google Sheets behavior. See how we verified this.
The spreadsheet
Excel or Google Sheets is flexible, free to open, and already on every staff computer. It records anything you type. What it will never do on its own is weigh dozens of competing placement rules and settle on a fair arrangement. That work stays with you, cell by cell.
Shibutz
Shibutz is built for one job: turn your students, rules, and balance goals into class lists you can defend. You keep the same roster, add the constraints you used to hold in your head, and let the engine do the sorting. Then you review, adjust, and export.
Side by side, dimension by dimension
A check marks the side that handles each dimension more comfortably. Notice that the spreadsheet genuinely wins several rows.
| What you are doing | Spreadsheet | Shibutz |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | Open a blank sheet you already own. Nothing to learn, nothing to buy. | Create a free account and import the roster you already keep in Excel. |
| Cost | Included with tools your school already pays for. | Free for one small class list; Pro is $199/year for a school. |
| Keeping specific students apart | Tracked by memory, colored cells, or comments that are easy to miss under pressure. | Entered as separation restrictions, which are hard constraints the engine never breaks. |
| Honoring friend requests | Reconciled by hand, so a request quietly slips through most years. | Entered as friend preferences the engine optimizes for and reports on, though it cannot promise every request is met. |
| Balancing gender and support needs | Counted by hand or with formulas you rebuild every year, then eyeballed for fairness. | Balance targets are soft goals the engine optimizes across classes and reports as per-class statistics. |
| Trying another arrangement | Reshuffling one child ripples into hours of manual re-checking. | Generate a fresh placement in seconds and compare it against the last one. |
| Showing your work to staff | The reasoning lives in one person’s head and a tab nobody else can read. | Every placement carries visible balance signals the whole team can review. |
| Handing lists to teachers | Already in a familiar file format for sharing. | Pro exports a staff-ready XLSX, so the final result still lands in a spreadsheet. |
| One small class, simple year | Genuinely fine. A sheet does the job. | More structure than a single easy list needs. |
A fair way to decide
Skip the feature checklist for a moment. The real question is how tangled your placement gets. These two lists usually settle it.
Stay with a spreadsheet when
- You place one class where almost any arrangement works.
- Your rules fit in your head and rarely change mid-process.
- A single person owns the list and no one else needs to audit it.
- You already have a formula-heavy sheet that your team trusts.
Reach for Shibutz when
- You split a grade across several classes and every seat matters.
- Friend requests, separations, and balance targets pull against each other.
- A few people need to review and sign off before lists go out.
- You want to test two or three arrangements without rebuilding anything.
What you gain, and what you give up, by switching
What you gain
- Placement rules become explicit instead of living in one colleague’s memory.
- Balance across classes is calculated for you and shown per class.
- Reshuffles take seconds, so a late change no longer wrecks an afternoon.
What you give up
- A new tool to sign in to, even though your roster imports from Excel.
- Pro costs $199/year once you pass the free single-list limit.
- The judgment calls are still yours; the software organizes them, it does not overrule you.
Moving from a sheet takes about ten minutes
You do not rebuild anything. The roster you already maintain becomes the starting point.
- 1
Import your existing roster
Upload the Excel file you already keep. Shibutz maps your columns to student fields so nothing is retyped.
Roster import guide - 2
Write down the rules you used to remember
Add friend preferences, separations, required placements, and balance targets so they are explicit instead of implied.
Placement settings - 3
Generate, review, and export
Build a placement, read the per-class balance, adjust, and on Pro export a staff-ready spreadsheet.
Understanding results
Common questions
- Is Shibutz just a fancier spreadsheet?
- No. A spreadsheet stores whatever you type. Shibutz reads your friend preferences, separation rules, and balance targets, then builds class lists that try to satisfy all of them at once and reports where it succeeded. That constraint-solving step is the part a plain sheet leaves entirely to you.
- Do I have to abandon my current spreadsheet?
- No. Most schools start from the roster they already keep in Excel. You import that file, add the rules you used to track by hand, and generate a placement. On Pro you can export the finished lists back to Excel, so spreadsheets stay part of the workflow at both ends.
- When are spreadsheets still the better choice?
- When you place a single class, your rules are simple, and one person owns the whole process, a spreadsheet is honestly enough. Shibutz earns its place once you are splitting a grade across classes and juggling competing requests, separations, and balance goals.
- How much does Shibutz cost compared to a spreadsheet?
- The Free plan covers one class list of up to 25 students with three placement generations, at no cost. Pro removes those limits and adds Excel export for $199 per year for the school. A spreadsheet has no license fee of its own; the real cost there is staff time.
Keep exploring
Import your roster from Excel
Bring the spreadsheet you already keep straight into Shibutz with column mapping.
Set balance and capacity rules
Turn the checks you used to do by hand into placement settings the engine enforces.
Read the balance signals
See the per-class statistics that replace eyeballing fairness in a sheet.
Export back to Excel
Send the finished lists to teachers in the familiar spreadsheet format.
Want a lighter starting point? Try the free random groups generator or the class size calculator, then compare the whole approach on the comparison hub.
How we verified this
Last reviewed July 13, 2026. Claims about Shibutz come straight from our own pricing, documentation, and product behavior, linked below so you can check each one. Claims about spreadsheets describe how Excel and Google Sheets work by default, without a built-in placement solver. We re-check this page whenever pricing, plan limits, or the placement engine change.
Test both on the same roster
Import the spreadsheet you already have, generate a placement, and see for yourself whether the engine beats another afternoon of manual sorting. The Free plan is enough to find out.
Build Your First Class ListFree plan available. Compare Free and Pro