Online Tool Store
Waterfall Chart Maker
Build a waterfall chart showing how a starting figure becomes an ending figure through a sequence of positive and negative steps.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
Data & CSV
Waterfall Chart Maker
Frontend preview — no upload or external service.
Chart preview
Opening 120,000 → new business +38,000 → churn −22,000 → price changes +6,000 → closing 142,000, with each bar floating from the running total.
How the Waterfall Chart Maker works
- List the opening figure, each change in order, and the closing figure.
- Keep the steps in the order they actually occurred or the order that explains the story.
- Check the closing bar equals the opening plus every step; if it does not, a step is missing.
The method
Each intermediate bar starts where the previous one ended, so its position encodes the running total and its height encodes the change.
closing = opening + Σ(steps), and the chart is only honest if that holds
A waterfall that does not reconcile is worse than a table, because it looks rigorous while hiding a missing category.
FAQ
When is a waterfall the right chart?
When the question is "how did we get from this number to that number". It is the standard for profit bridges, revenue variance and budget explanations.
How many steps can it show?
Around eight to ten before the bars get too narrow to label. Group small contributors into an "other" step rather than shrinking everything.
Does it have to reconcile exactly?
Yes. If the steps do not sum to the difference between opening and closing, something is missing, and presenting it anyway invites exactly the question you cannot answer.
How we compare
| Feature | Online Tool Store | A spreadsheet | A BI platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Running total encoded in position | ✓ | Manual | Yes |
| Reconciliation check | ✓ | ✗ | Sometimes |
| No spreadsheet gymnastics | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Data stays local | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Waterfall Chart Maker checks that the steps reconcile to the closing figure, because a bridge that does not balance is a presentation risk, not a chart.