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Stacked Column Chart Maker

Show a total and its parts in one vertical column. Upload your spreadsheet, choose the categories to stack, and publish an interactive stacked column chart you can embed anywhere — free.

Créer un Stacked Column Chart — gratuitVoir la galerie

Un Stacked Column Chart interactif, créé avec PlotSet

Pas une capture d’écran — un vrai graphique interactif, intégré exactement comme le vôtre le serait.

Exemple : Revenue by quarter and contract type

Qu’est-ce qu’un Stacked Column Chart ?

A stacked column chart is a vertical bar chart in which each column is divided into segments, so the column's full height is the total and each segment is one part of it. It is the same idea as a stacked bar chart turned on its side, and the orientation is the whole reason to choose between them: columns read left to right, which is the direction people expect time to run, so a stacked column chart is the natural shape for a total that changes across quarters, months or years. The trade-off is fixed and worth knowing up front — only the bottom segment sits on a common baseline, so that series is easy to compare across columns and every series above it is not.

Quand utiliser un Stacked Column Chart

  • Your categories are time periods

    Quarters, months, years. Columns run along the horizontal axis in the direction readers already read time, which makes a trend in the total obvious without a second chart.

  • The total matters as much as the breakdown

    Revenue by quarter split by contract type, headcount by year split by department. If your reader needs both the total and what it is made of, stacking gives them both at once.

  • You have a small number of segments

    Two to five segments per column stay readable. Beyond that the middle bands get thin, the colours get hard to tell apart, and the chart stops being useful.

  • Your category labels are short

    Column charts give each label the width of one column. "Q1" and "2026" fit comfortably; "Marketing and Communications" does not, and that is when you switch to a horizontal stacked bar chart instead.

Quand éviter un Stacked Column Chart

  • Your reader needs to compare the middle segments precisely

    Segments that do not touch a shared baseline cannot be compared accurately by eye — they float at a different starting height in every column. If a middle series is the point of the chart, use grouped columns or a small multiple of separate charts.

  • Your category names are long

    Long labels under a column get rotated to 45 degrees or truncated. Horizontal bars give every label a full line of its own, so a stacked bar chart is the better shape for named categories like regions, products or departments.

  • You have many time periods

    Thirty-six months of stacked columns becomes a picket fence. Past roughly twelve periods, a stacked area chart carries the same information with a continuous shape that is easier to follow.

  • The parts do not sum to a meaningful total

    Stacking implies the segments add up to something real. Averages, rates and percentages of different denominators do not, and stacking them produces a column height that means nothing.

Comment créer un Stacked Column Chart

D’un tableur à un graphique publié, étape par étape.

01

Start from the stacked column template

Open the PlotSet stacked column chart template. Sample data comes bound, so you can see the expected spreadsheet layout before uploading your own.

02

Shape your data as one row per period

Put the time period or category in the first column — Q1, January, 2026 — and one column per segment. Each numeric column becomes one band in every stack.

03

Upload or connect your source

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the chart can be refreshed when the data changes.

04

Order the stack deliberately

Put the series your reader most needs to compare at the bottom, on the shared baseline. Then keep that order identical in every column so the eye can track a band across the chart.

05

Switch to percentages if shares are the story

The 100% variant normalises every column to full height, so only the proportions differ. Use it when the totals are irrelevant or so different in size that the small periods are unreadable.

06

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive embed with hover tooltips, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a report or a deck.

Partez du modèle Stacked Column Chart avec des données d’exemple déjà chargées, puis remplacez-les par les vôtres.

Ouvrir le modèle

Les éléments d’un Stacked Column Chart

Category axis
The horizontal axis carrying the periods or categories — one column per quarter, month or product.
Value axis
The vertical scale the column heights are measured against. It must start at zero: height is the encoding, and a truncated axis makes every difference on the chart look larger than it is.
Segment (band)
One part of the total inside a column. Its height is that part's value; its colour identifies the series across every column.
Stack order
The bottom-to-top sequence of segments. The bottom band is the only one on a shared baseline, which makes stack order an analytical decision rather than a styling one.
Legend
The colour-to-series key. With few segments, labelling the bands directly beats a separate legend because it removes the back-and-forth lookup.
Total label
An optional value above each column. Worth adding when the total is part of the story, since reading a stacked total off an axis is imprecise.

Erreurs courantes avec un Stacked Column Chart

Stacking too many series

Past about five bands the column becomes a colour gradient. Roll the small categories into a labelled "Other" segment and keep the ones your reader can name.

Changing the stack order between columns

If segments appear in a different order from column to column, cross-period comparison becomes impossible. Fix the order once and keep it.

Cutting the value axis

Columns encode value as height from zero. Starting the axis anywhere else breaks that encoding and overstates every difference on the chart.

Rotating long labels instead of switching orientation

Angled labels under columns are slower to read and get truncated on narrow screens. If the names are long, the answer is horizontal bars, not a smaller font.

Using a stacked chart when you meant grouped

If the question is "which segment is biggest in each period?" rather than "what does each total consist of?", grouped columns on a shared baseline answer it far more accurately.

Stacked Column Chart : questions fréquentes

Showing a total and its composition at the same time, usually across time periods. Each column's height is the total for that period, and the coloured segments inside it show which parts make up that total.

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Créer un Stacked Column Chart — gratuitTous les types de graphiques