PRODUCT
Multiply every number in a range or list.
Syntax
PRODUCT(number1, [number2], ...) | Argument | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
number1 | Required | A range or value. |
number2 | Optional | Further ranges or values. |
Examples
Every example below was executed against VisiGrid engine 0.31.0 — not
transcribed from another vendor's documentation. Reproduce any of them with vgrid calc.
| Formula | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|
=PRODUCT(2,3,4) | 24 | |
=PRODUCT(A1:A5) | 6000 | 10 times 20 times 30 — text and blanks are skipped, not treated as zero. |
Blanks would otherwise destroy the answer
Skipping non-numbers matters far more for multiplication than for addition. A single blank treated as zero would make every product zero, which would render the function useless on real data. Skipping is the only sensible behaviour, and it is what both Excel and VisiGrid do.
Compound growth
The usual real use is chaining rates — twelve monthly multipliers into an annual one:
=PRODUCT(B2:B13) - 1
with each cell holding 1 + rate. Adding the rates instead is the classic error,
and it overstates the result whenever the rates are anything but tiny.
Excel compatibility
Matches Excel.