FORMULA & SQL / LOOKUPS

Look up the nearest lower value.
Tested, not guessed.

The Excel and Google Sheets formula and the SQL query, each run on the rows below. Open this with your own data ↗

The example rows

Row	A: Region	B: Rep	C: Amount	D: Order Date	E: Status	F: Customer
2	North	Ana	1,200	2026-03-01	Paid	Jo Smith
3	South	Ben	450	2026-03-15	Open	Raj Patel
4	North	Cy	300	2026-04-02	Paid	Lee Wong
5	East	Ana	980.50	2026-04-20	Paid	Mia Ross
6	North	Ben	75	2026-05-05	Open	Jo Smith
7	West	Dee	1,640	2026-05-18	Paid	Sam Okoro

Excel

=XLOOKUP(500,A2:A7,C2:C7,"Not found",-1)

The value from the Amount column (C2:C7) on the row where the Region column (A2:A7) matches 500 (or "Not found" if there is no match).

Run on the example rows:

ResultNot found

PostgreSQL

SELECT amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC
LIMIT 1

Run on the example rows:

Other databases

MySQL

SELECT amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC
LIMIT 1

SQL Server

SELECT TOP 1 amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC

SQLite

SELECT amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC
LIMIT 1

BigQuery

SELECT amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC
LIMIT 1

Snowflake

SELECT amount
FROM sales
WHERE region <= 500
ORDER BY region DESC
LIMIT 1

Paste your rows into the free tool and it writes this for your columns, then runs it on your data before you copy it. Open the tool ↗