Anyone asking whether Tiller or Power Query is the better path for automating credit card imports is asking the right question, but from the wrong starting point. The real choice isn't between two tools, it's between two philosophies of how you want to interact with your data.
Tiller offers a hands-off, subscription-based approach: it connects directly to your financial institutions, pulls transaction data into Google Sheets or Excel, and keeps everything updated without you touching a thing. Power Query, on the other hand, puts you in the driver's seat. You build the connection, define the transformation rules, and schedule the refresh yourself. Both can get the job done, but they serve different mindsets.
For users who value time over control, Tiller is the pragmatic answer. You pay a modest annual fee and never think about broken connections or format changes again. The team behind it handles the maintenance, so your spreadsheet stays current with minimal effort. That matters if your goal is to spend less time managing data and more time acting on it. But if you're someone who wants to understand every step of the pipeline, who prefers to own the process rather than rent it, Power Query is the better fit. It's free, it's built into Excel and Power BI, and it forces you to learn how data moves from source to report. That learning curve pays off when you need to adapt the workflow for other tasks, not just credit card imports.
The practical takeaway is this: choose based on your relationship with the work itself. If you want the convenience of a service that handles the plumbing, Tiller is worth the subscription. If you want to build your own plumbing and reuse it across projects, invest the time in Power Query. Neither is wrong, but conflating the two as interchangeable options misses the point. The right answer depends on whether you value maintenance-free consistency or the flexibility of a system you fully control.