Sample CSV
| Stage | Count |
|---|---|
| Visited Pricing Page | 18400 |
| Started Trial | 4120 |
| Activated Account | 2380 |
| Added Payment Method | 910 |
| Became Paying Customer | 640 |
How to Create a Funnel Chart
A step by step walkthrough for turning a stage-by-stage spreadsheet into a published funnel chart in PlotSet, from ordering the rows to exporting or embedding the result.
About 7 minutesApplicants to hires, visitors to purchasers, leads to closed deals: how to create a funnel chart in PlotSet works the same way regardless of which stage counts are narrowing. You will upload the sheet, get the stage order right, label the drop-off between bands, and either publish a live embed or export a static image for a deck.
If your data is already two columns, stage and count, in the right order, this takes about five minutes. Add a couple more if you need to reconcile counts that came from different reports, since a funnel only works when each stage is genuinely a subset of the one before it. Budget the seven minutes below and treat the rest as buffer for that cleanup.
The data you need
Two columns, one row per stage, already sorted in process order: the stage name first, the count still remaining second. No totals row, one header row.
Row order is chart order. PlotSet draws the bands top to bottom in the order they appear in the file, so sort your rows by process stage before uploading, not by count.
Every stage must be a subset of the one above it. If some paying customers never technically "started a trial" in your tracking, the counts will not nest cleanly and the chart will misrepresent the process. Fix the definitions in the source data first.
Keep it to three to six stages. Below three you just have a conversion rate, and past six the bands get too thin to label.
The count column must decrease (or stay flat) from row to row. A stage that goes back up usually means two different metrics got mixed into one column, for example a raw pageview count sitting above a deduplicated visitor count.
The steps
The exact click path in PlotSet, from a blank template to a finished chart.
- 01
Open the funnel chart template
From the PlotSet dashboard, start a new project and choose the Funnel Chart template. It loads with sample stages already bound to the columns, so you can see the two-column shape before touching your own file.
Every guide starts here. Pick the category, then the template: it is the same grid whichever chart type you are after. - 02
Order your rows by stage, not by count
In your spreadsheet, put the first stage of the process in row one and work down to the last. This is the step people skip, and it is the one PlotSet has no way to guess for you: nothing about the numbers themselves tells the chart which stage came first.
- 03
Bring in the sheet or connect it live
Import a CSV or .xlsx file from the data panel, paste rows directly from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet if the counts get refreshed on a schedule and you want the chart to update with them.
The data view, shown here on a bar chart project. Upload a CSV, lift the numbers out of an image with Magic Import, or sync a Google Sheet. The panel is identical for every chart type. - 04
Map the stage and value columns
Confirm which column feeds the stage labels and which feeds the band width. PlotSet usually gets this right from clear headers like "Stage" and "Count", but check it if your sheet carries extra columns it might have guessed wrong on.
Bindings decide which column becomes the label, which supplies the values and which drives the colour. Auto Binding guesses them from your headers, so check it rather than assume it. - 05
Turn on stage-to-stage conversion labels
Switch on the label option that shows the percentage carried over from the previous stage, not just the raw count at each one. The count alone tells you the size of each stage; the conversion percentage tells you where the process is actually losing people.
- 06
Style the bands
A single colour, darkening slightly from top to bottom, reads as one continuous process rather than a set of unrelated categories. Reserve a second, contrasting colour for the one stage you want the reader to notice, usually the biggest drop.
The Preview tab for a Funnel Chart. Every styling control lives in the outlined panel, each on its own tab: appearance, header, footer and the options specific to this chart type. - 07
Title the chart around the finding
"Trial signup funnel" describes the data; "Most trials drop off before adding a payment method" states the finding. Put the second kind of title on the chart and let the bands back it up.
- 08
Publish, embed or export the funnel
Publish for a live interactive chart where hovering a band shows its exact count and conversion rate, grab the embed code for a page, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a slide or report.
Start from the Funnel Chart template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.
Open the templatePublish, embed or export it
The last stretch is the same for every chart type: Share turns the chart into a live public link and an embed code, Export writes it out as a static file.
Share: public link and embed code
Activating the embed code and public link publishes the chart. The link is safe to send to anyone, and the embed code drops into any page as an iframe that keeps the hover tooltips and the interactivity. Edit the chart later and hit Recreate to push those changes out to both.
Export: SVG, PNG or JPG
Export writes a static copy at whatever size you need. SVG stays sharp at any scale and can still be edited in a design tool; PNG and JPG are the safe choices for slides and documents. The scale multiplier is what gets you a crisp image on a retina screen.
Styling tips for a Funnel Chart
Label the drop-off between bands, not just each band
A funnel chart with only the count at each stage asks the reader to do subtraction in their head. Show the amount or percentage lost between consecutive stages directly on the taper, so the worst step is visible without any arithmetic.
Keep the taper, skip the 3D effect
Some tools offer a beveled or 3D-shaded funnel. It looks like a decoration from a slide template and makes the band widths harder to compare accurately. A flat funnel with straight taper edges reads faster and measures better.
Order stages by process, never by size
It is tempting to sort by count when a report happens to come out that way, but a funnel's row order is read as "what happens first," not "what is largest." If two stages could ever swap order and still make sense, they do not belong in the same funnel.
Match colour intensity to stage, not to value
A single hue that gets slightly darker toward the bottom mirrors the shrinking shape and needs no legend. Colouring bands by their count instead just repeats information the width already shows.
Common mistakes when making a Funnel Chart
The bands are not actually narrowing in order
This almost always means the rows were sorted by count, alphabetically, or by whatever order they came out of a report, not by the order the stages happen in. Re-sort the source rows by process stage in the spreadsheet and re-upload; PlotSet renders top to bottom in row order and cannot infer the process for you.
One band is wider than the stage above it
A later stage cannot legitimately have more people than an earlier one in a true funnel, so this points to two different counting methods getting mixed together, for example a session count above a unique-user count. Check how each number was produced and make sure every stage counts the same population, just filtered further.
The chart has too many thin, unreadable bands
Past about six stages, minor sub-steps crowd out the ones that matter and every band gets too thin to label. Group the intermediate steps into the handful of stages someone could realistically act on, and move the finer breakdown into a table alongside the chart.
Learn more about the Funnel Chart
Not sure the Funnel Chart is the right choice? See what it is, when to use it and when not to.
Funnel Chart: common questions
Two columns and one header row, with the stage name in the first column and the count remaining at that stage in the second. Rows must already be sorted in process order, since PlotSet draws bands top to bottom in the order they appear in the file.
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