A tailor's prices live on a printed menu: hem pants, take in a waist, replace a zipper. Put that menu in the sheet once and VLOOKUP prices every ticket the same way, so nobody has to remember what a zipper costs this month.
“Hem pants” lands on the $15 row; change it to “Take in dress” and the same cell returns $45.
The example
Three tickets on the left; the price menu sits in columns E and F.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer | Service | Price | Service | Price | |
| 2 | Rivera | Hem pants | 15 | Hem pants | 15 | |
| 3 | Chen | Take in dress | 45 | Take in waist | 25 | |
| 4 | Okafor | Zipper replace | 20 | Take in dress | 45 |
The formula
VLOOKUP finds the service name in the menu and returns the price beside it:
How it works
Four arguments, one job each:
B2is the service to look up — the words on the ticket.$E$2:$F$6is the price menu, locked with dollar signs so it does not shift as the formula copies down.2returns the value from the menu's second column — the price.FALSEforces an exact match, so “Hem pants” never accidentally returns the price of “Hem dress.”
Spell the service the same way on the ticket and in the menu. A trailing space or a plural will return #N/A instead of a price.
Try it: interactive demo
Pick an alteration and read its menu price.
Variations
Total a multi-item ticket
Look up each line, then SUM the prices for the ticket total.
Add a rush surcharge
Multiply the looked-up price by 1.5 for same-day work.
Pitfalls & errors
An exact-match VLOOKUP returns #N/A when the service text does not match the menu exactly. Use a dropdown (Data Validation) tied to the menu so tickets can only hold real service names.
Keep the menu on its own sheet and reference it. Then a price change happens in one place and every past and future ticket reads the new number.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
Why not just type the price on each ticket?
Should I use XLOOKUP instead?
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