What is an alternative to Google Sheets for tracking applications?

Feature comparison

As of 4 September 2026. "not stated" means it could not be read on their own site — not "does not exist". Our rows come from the code (lib/stripe/trialConfig.ts) and from walking the live flow, not from marketing copy.

Pricing side by side

As of 4 September 2026. "not stated" means it could not be read on their own site — not "does not exist". Our rows come from the code (lib/stripe/trialConfig.ts) and from walking the live flow, not from marketing copy.

What Google Sheets does better, including better than us

Three things, and none of them is small. The sheet remembers when you changed something. It can be shown to someone without being sent. And it is on your phone, because it lives in the account rather than on a disk. A replacement that covers only one of the three is not an upgrade, it is a nicer-looking downgrade.

The history is where we honestly lose. Our application list stores a date and lets you correct it, but it keeps no record of when you corrected it. Sheets does exactly that: version history shows who changed what and when, and individual cells carry their own edit history. For a list where a date might matter later, that is not a detail. If it matters to you, Sheets is the better tool, and saying so is more useful than pretending otherwise.

Sharing is the second. If you go through the list with an adviser, a coach or a partner, a link beats an attachment that is out of date the moment it is sent. And the third: the Sheets app exists for Android and iPhone, which means the list is where you actually are in the evening.

Where the spreadsheet actually breaks

Not on features. It breaks on data entry. A useful row has eight to ten fields — date, role, employer, location, workload, link, contact, channel, status, follow-up date — and you type every one of them while the advert sits open in the next tab. Twice a week for four months, that is why most trackers stop in month three. It is not a missing function.

A URL in a cell is also not an entry. Sheets cannot turn a link into a job title; it stays a link, and adverts are taken down as soon as the role is filled. Paste only the address and you are left with a row pointing at an empty page, from which neither the employer nor the workload can be reconstructed.

The phone app does not solve this either, it moves it. Nobody fills a ten-column row on a bus twice. There is, however, a way around that which surprisingly few people use.

The Google route that halves the typing: a form instead of a row

Google Forms writes its responses straight into a spreadsheet. Google's help puts it plainly: if you store answers in a spreadsheet, the data is automatically placed into a table in Google Sheets. Every submitted response becomes a row, with a timestamp attached.

In practice: build a form with exactly the fields your list needs, put the link on your phone's home screen, and fill it in during the thirty seconds after the application goes out. The date is then recorded for you, and you never sit down to a backlog of five rows. For fields with fixed options — channel, workload, status — dropdowns are faster than typing.

This is advice that helps Google rather than us, and if it solves your problem you do not need an alternative at all. What it does not solve: the content still comes out of the advert and still passes through your hands. The form makes entry faster, not unnecessary.

Where the sheet lives, and why Swiss data protection law does not apply to it

Google states where the data can sit. “We operate servers all over the world”, the privacy policy says, and data may therefore be processed on servers outside the country you live in. Anyone who prefers a file on their own disk has a real reason for it rather than a quirk.

One thing is widely misremembered, though, and it belongs here: the Swiss Data Protection Act does not apply to your own job-application list in the first place. Article 2 paragraph 2 letter a FADP excludes “personal data being processed by a natural person exclusively for personal use” from the scope of the Act. Which country the sheet sits in is therefore not a legal question, as long as it stays your private list.

Two practical questions remain. First, a link that works for anyone who has it is no longer a private list, and that list contains information about other people. Second, the sheet depends on an account. Lose access and you lose the list. File, then Download, takes ten seconds a month and is the only backup this situation needs.

The columns a Swiss list needs that an imported template will not have

Almost every tracker template circulating online is cut for the American process: Position, Company, Status, Follow-up. That is enough to record an application in Zurich, Lausanne or Lugano, and not enough to find it again when somebody calls three weeks later.

What belongs here: the Pensum, the workload as a percentage, because 80% and 100% of the same role are two different applications. The canton, not just the town — it decides your commute and, for cross-border commuters, the withholding tax (Quellensteuer) that comes off the salary. The language the advert was written in, because a Zurich employer may advertise in English and then expect the dossier in English, while in Fribourg or Biel either language can be the right answer. Whether a work permit question was asked. And the contact person with a direct line, because “HR” tells you nothing four weeks later.

If you are moving to Switzerland or applying from abroad, add one column you would never think of at home: whether the salary quoted is paid over twelve months or thirteen. The 13th month salary is not stated in every advert, it changes the comparison between two offers substantially, and it is precisely the sort of thing you learn on a phone call and then write down nowhere.

Which alternative suits whom

If you are registered with an RAV, the regional employment centre, the order is fixed and it is not a matter of taste. Proof of your job-search efforts goes through the eService in Job-Room or through your canton's form, because only what is submitted there counts, within the deadline set by Article 26 paragraph 2 AVIV. Neither Google Sheets nor we replace that. We are the working list beside it, holding follow-ups, interview dates and contacts, and nothing more.

Stay with Google Sheets if you share the list with someone, if you have to print it or hand it in as a file, if a traceable change history matters to you, or if it is simply working. Replacing a system that works because another one looks nicer is time you do not get back.

Use the application list on SwissJobs.app if you find your adverts here anyway and apply regularly. The reason is narrow and it is the only one that counts: the row is created when you save, because the advert is already here — title, employer, location, link and date without a keystroke. In exchange there is no export and no print view; if you need to hand a file to someone, Sheets serves you better.

One rule holds for all three answers: enter the row while the application is still open in front of you. Every one of these tools fails at the same point — the evening you promise yourself you will catch up on the whole week.