Keyboard Maestro ($36 one-time) and BetterTouchTool ($15 for two years or $25 lifetime) are macro tools. Either can bind a hotkey to a macro that picks an Excel menu item, but neither knows the ribbon or shows KeyTips, so you build every command yourself. Accelerator Keys ($39.99/year) ships 900+ Excel Alt sequences with badges. Need 5–20 automations? Use your macro tool. Want the Windows Alt system? Accelerator Keys.
| Accelerator Keys | Keyboard Maestro / BetterTouchTool | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per year | $39.99 (Excel) or $59.99 (Excel + PowerPoint) | Keyboard Maestro $36 one-time ($25 upgrades). BetterTouchTool $15 for 2 years of updates or $25 lifetime. Prices vary by country and tax |
| Setup time | About 2 minutes: install, grant Accessibility permission, done | 10 minutes to install; then a few minutes per macro, times the number of commands you want |
| Keystroke latency | Native — the app sends the ribbon command directly to Mac Excel | Near-native for a Cmd shortcut; a small delay for macros that walk menus or move the mouse |
| Battery and CPU | Negligible — a 20 MB menu bar app | Negligible for both |
| Needs a Windows license? | No | No |
| Works offline? | Yes | Yes |
| Alt shortcut coverage | 900+ Excel and 380+ PowerPoint ribbon sequences, plus legacy Alt+E / Alt+I / Alt+O / Alt+D, with KeyTip badges on the ribbon | Zero out of the box. Each command is a macro you build, and multi-key sequences with no visual feedback are awkward to build and remember |
| Windows-only Excel features (Power Pivot, Power Query editor, some VBA, some add-ins) | No — you are still in Excel for Mac | No — you are still in Excel for Mac |
| Files stay in native Mac apps | Yes | Yes |
Both are respected Mac automation tools, and both are worth their price for what they do.
Keyboard Maestro is a macro engine. You build a macro from actions — select a menu item, type a keystroke, click at a found image, run a script, show a palette — and give it a trigger such as a hotkey. It is $36 one-time for version 11, with $25 upgrades, and runs on macOS 10.13 and later.
BetterTouchTool started as a trackpad and Touch Bar customizer and grew into a general input tool. You bind shortcuts, gestures and buttons to actions, including app-specific key sequences and menu items. It is $15 for two years of updates or $25 for a lifetime license, and the exact price depends on your country and taxes.
If you already own one, you have a real tool in hand. The question is whether it is the right tool for this job.
Not as a system. They can give you some commands, one macro at a time.
Out of the box, Excel for Mac has no keyboard mode for the ribbon. So a macro tool cannot “send Alt, H, O, I to Excel” and let Excel route it. Instead, for each command you want, you build a macro that does the work by other means:
Then you pick a trigger. A single hotkey per command is easy. A Windows-style sequence — press Option, then H, then O, then I — is possible in Keyboard Maestro with a palette or a chain of triggers, and in BetterTouchTool with key sequences, but each path is hand-built and there are no letter badges to remind you what comes next.
Build five macros and you have a nice personal toolkit. Build fifty and you have an afternoon gone and a maintenance list. Build the full ribbon and you have written a product.
Accelerator Keys is that product. It is a native menu bar app that talks to Excel and PowerPoint through the macOS Accessibility API.
Yes. A common setup is Keyboard Maestro or BetterTouchTool for everything outside Office, and Accelerator Keys for the Option key inside Excel and PowerPoint. Just avoid macros that capture Option itself while Excel is frontmost.
It is macOS only and covers Excel and PowerPoint only. It is a subscription. It needs Accessibility permission. And it does not add Windows-only Excel features such as Power Pivot, the full Power Query editor, or some VBA and COM add-ins.
Keyboard Maestro and BetterTouchTool are excellent, cheap, general-purpose macro tools. They can rebuild a handful of Excel commands, and if that is all you need, use them. They cannot give you the ribbon’s Alt system with badges without you building it. That is the whole of what Accelerator Keys does.
Partly. Keyboard Maestro can bind a hotkey to a macro that selects an Excel menu item, types a Cmd shortcut, or clicks a ribbon button by image. It can also chain a hotkey to a follow-up keystroke. But there is no ribbon awareness and no KeyTips, so every command is a macro you design, name and remember yourself.
Also partly. BetterTouchTool binds keyboard shortcuts, gestures and Touch Bar buttons to actions, including app-specific key sequences and menu-item selection. Like Keyboard Maestro it has no ribbon model. You can rebuild a handful of favorite commands; rebuilding hundreds with letter badges is not what it is for.
As of August 2026, Keyboard Maestro 11 is $36 one-time plus tax, with $25 upgrades. BetterTouchTool is $15 for a two-year update license or $25 for a lifetime license, and its page notes the exact price depends on country and taxes. Both are cheaper than Accelerator Keys over several years, if you are willing to build your own macros.
Yes. Many people keep a macro tool for window management, text expansion and non-Office automation, and let Accelerator Keys handle the Option key inside Excel and PowerPoint. Avoid macros that hijack Option itself while Excel is frontmost, because Accelerator Keys needs to see that key.
Accelerator Keys, by a wide margin, if the goal is Windows Alt sequences. It is a two-minute install with the shortcuts already built. A macro tool is a ten-minute install followed by as many macros as you care to write. For five commands that is fine. For fifty it is an afternoon, and for the whole ribbon it is not practical.