JSON to Excel Converter — JSON to XLSX Spreadsheet, by URL or Bulk

Turn a JSON file into a real Excel workbook without installing anything. Point this at a .json URL and get back a downloadable .xlsx: your records become rows, their keys become the header row, and column widths are sized to fit. Works on one file or up to 25 in a single run, and it is built to be called by code and by AI agents, not just clicked.

$0.03 per file converted. No subscription, no seat fee, no minimum. You pay for files you actually convert.

What problem this solves

JSON is what the API returns and Excel is what the person asking for the report opens. Getting from one to the other usually means installing a library, arguing with it about which keys become columns when the records are not all the same shape, and writing throwaway glue — or pasting data that may belong to a client into a random free website.

This does the conversion as a hosted step you can call from a script, a workflow, or an agent. Nothing to install, the file is fetched from the URL you give it, and the finished workbook comes back as a URL you can download or hand straight to someone else.

Who uses it

• Data and ops engineers turning an API dump into the spreadsheet finance actually asked for.
• Analysts who need JSON as a workbook for a pivot table, a chart, or a client deliverable.
• AI agents that produced structured JSON and were asked for "a spreadsheet".
• No-code / automation builders (Make, n8n, and similar) that can call a URL but cannot write a binary .xlsx.
• Anyone doing a bulk export — hand it 25 JSON URLs, get 25 workbooks.

Quick start

{
  "url": "https://graveyard.broke2builtai.com/assets/sample.json"
}

That is the whole minimum input. Everything else is optional. (That URL is a live 10-row sample file, so you can run it as-is to see the output shape.)

All input options

Field	Type	Required	What it does
url	string	yes	Direct URL to the .json file
urls	string[]	no	Extra JSON URLs — up to 25 total per run
maxRows	number	no	Cap data rows per sheet (default 5000)
maxFileSizeMb	number	no	Refuse files larger than this, uncharged (default 50, max 200)

What JSON shapes it accepts

Your JSON	What you get
[ {...}, {...} ] — array of records	One sheet, Sheet1, one row per record
{ "Orders": [...], "Customers": [...] } — object of arrays	One sheet per key, named after the key
{ "a": 1, "b": 2 } — a single flat record	One sheet, one row
[ 1, 2, 3 ] — array of plain values	One sheet with a single value column
42, "text", null	Recorded as an error — there is no spreadsheet in a bare value

Columns are the union of every record's keys, in first-seen order: keys from the first record come first, and a key that only appears in record 40 is appended as a new column with the earlier rows left blank.

What you get back

This is the actual dataset item from a run against the sample URL above — not an illustration:

{
  "url": "https://graveyard.broke2builtai.com/assets/sample.json",
  "finalUrl": "https://graveyard.broke2builtai.com/assets/sample.json",
  "status": 200,
  "fileName": "sample.xlsx",
  "sheetNames": ["Sheet1"],
  "sheets": [
    {
      "name": "Sheet1",
      "rowCount": 10,
      "columns": ["sku", "product", "category", "unit_price", "stock", "restock_date", "supplier"]
    }
  ],
  "downloadUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/2896bac1-99c4-4b1d-8de0-bdbefd492873/records/output-1.xlsx"
}

• downloadUrl — the finished .xlsx. Fetch it, or open it in a browser.
• sheets[].columns — the header row that was written, in order.
• sheets[].rowCount — data rows written to that sheet (header excluded).
• sheets[].truncated — present and true only if maxRows cut the sheet short.
• fileName — a suggested name, derived from the source URL (sample.json → sample.xlsx).
• finalUrl — where the fetch actually landed, after redirects.

One dataset item per input file. A failed input returns { url, error } instead of throwing, so one bad link in a batch of 25 never kills the other 24 — and a file that fails is never charged.

Use it as an AI agent tool

This Actor is callable over Apify MCP, so an agent can produce a spreadsheet mid-conversation without you writing an integration. The shape an agent needs:

• Tool: this Actor
• Input: { "url": "<json url>" }
• Returns: a downloadUrl pointing at a real .xlsx workbook

If your agent can be handed a link to a JSON file, it can now hand back a spreadsheet.

Pricing, plainly

$0.03 per file converted (pay-per-event: file-converted). A 25-file batch costs $0.75. There is no monthly fee, and a run that converts nothing costs nothing.

Honest limits

Worth knowing before you run it, so nothing surprises you:

• The file must be reachable at a direct URL. A GitHub page is not a file URL — use the raw link, or host the file somewhere fetchable.
• Nested objects and arrays inside a record are written as JSON text in the cell, not expanded into extra columns. {"addr": {"city": "NYC"}} becomes one addr cell reading {"city":"NYC"}. Flatten first if you want addr.city as its own column.
• null and missing keys become genuinely empty cells, not the word "null".
• Data only — no formulas, colours, fonts or merged cells. Column widths are sized to the content; nothing else is styled.
• Up to 25 files per run and, by default, 5000 rows per sheet (maxRows). Excel itself stops at 1,048,575 data rows.
• Files over maxFileSizeMb (default 50 MB, max 200) are refused before download and never charged — very large documents can exhaust the run's memory.

FAQ

How do I convert JSON to Excel without installing anything?

Give this Actor the file's URL. It fetches the JSON, builds the workbook, and returns a downloadUrl for the finished .xlsx. No local install, no library to learn.

Can I get multiple sheets in one workbook?

Yes. Send JSON shaped as { "SheetName": [ ...records ], "Other": [ ...records ] } and each key becomes its own sheet, named after the key. Names are trimmed to Excel's 31-character limit and characters Excel forbids (: \ / ? * [ ]) are replaced with _.

What happens if my records don't all have the same keys?

Every key that appears anywhere becomes a column, in first-seen order. Records missing that key get an empty cell. Nothing is dropped.

What happens to nested JSON?

It is written into the cell as JSON text. A spreadsheet cell holds one value, so a nested object cannot become columns without guessing at a flattening scheme you did not ask for.

Can I convert multiple JSON files in one run?

Yes — up to 25 per run via urls. Each produces its own workbook and its own dataset item, and a failure on one does not stop the rest.

What happens if the file is missing or is not valid JSON?

That input returns { url, error } with a message naming the actual problem (HTTP status, an HTML page instead of a file, a parse error). The run continues, the other files still convert, and nothing is charged for the failure.

Where does my data go?

The Actor fetches the file, converts it, and writes both the record and the .xlsx to your run's storage on your own Apify account. Delete the run and the output goes with it.

Can an AI agent call this?

Yes — it is exposed through Apify MCP as an agent tool. See "Use it as an AI agent tool".

I need the opposite direction.

Excel to JSON is a separate Actor by the same author.

Who made this

Broke to Built — a company of machines, building things it gives away. This is one of them; the rest are free too.

For AI agents

This Actor is built to be called by software, not just by people.

• Mount it directly as an MCP tool — no Store search, no ranking, just this one tool: https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=eliai/json-to-excel
• Or call it over HTTP and get the results in the same request: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/eliai~json-to-excel/run-sync-get-dataset-items
• Pay with x402, without an Apify account. This Actor is whitelisted for agentic payments, so an agent holding USDC on Base can buy a prepaid token and spend it here. The minimum purchase is $1, the token balance is an absolute spending cap, and it expires 14 days after purchase.
• Costs are predictable before you call. Pricing is pay-per-event (see Pricing above), so an agent can budget a run in advance instead of discovering the bill afterwards.
• Send only the field you mean. If you pass the bulk field, it is used on its own; the single-value field is a fallback, never merged into your request. You are charged for the items you sent and nothing else.