How to Find a Residual Standard Error in Excel (2 Easy Methods)

Below is a dataset with 3 columns: “Company,” “Advertising,” and “Revenue.” We will find the relationship between advertising and revenue generation for Company XYZ. This error will tell us how much our predicted values differ from the actual values.

find residual standard error in excel

Method 1 – Using Regression Analysis to Find a Residual Standard Error

Steps:

Press ALT, F, and O to open the Excel Options window.
From Add-ins >>> select “Go…”.

A dialog box will appear.

Select “Analysis Toolpak” and press OK.

Regression Analysis: how to find residual standard error in excel

We will enable the Data Analysis feature. The newly created feature can be seen inside the Data tab.

Click on Data Analysis.

The Data Analysis dialog box will appear.

Select Regression and press OK.

Regression Analysis to find residual standard error

Now, we’ll select the following options inside the Regression dialog box:

Input Y Range: D4:D10. Here, the Y Range means the Dependent variable (Revenue).
Input X Range: C4:C10. Here, X Range means Independent variable (Advertising).
Select Labels.
Output Range: B12. We’ll put the Regression value here.
Press OK.

We’ll get our value from the Summary Output—the Standard Error 74.30977729.

We can get it if we Square Root the value of the Mean Square of Residual (5521.94).

how to find residual standard error in excel

Method 2 – Finding the Residual Standard Error Using Generic Formula

We’ve changed our dataset.

Using formula to find residual standard error

Steps:

Select the cell range G9:H9 and enter the following formula:

=LINEST(C6:C11,B6:B11)

This function returns statistical values from provided X and Y values. Our y_values are in cell range C6:C11, and the x_values are in cell range B6:B11.