Waterfall Charts, No Excel Needed
Build a professional waterfall chart online in minutes — no formulas, no workarounds.
Making a waterfall chart in Excel takes stacked-bar tricks and manual formatting. MakeCharts gives you a dedicated waterfall builder with increase, decrease, total, and subtotal bars ready out of the box.
Everything a Waterfall Chart Needs
Purpose-built controls — not the workarounds Excel forces you through.
4 Native Bar Types
Label each bar as Increase, Decrease, Total, or Subtotal. The chart draws floating segments automatically — no stacked-bar formula hacks.
Color-Coded Gains and Losses
Set distinct colors for increases, decreases, totals, and subtotals so your audience reads the story at a glance.
Vertical or Horizontal Layout
Switch orientation with one click to fit landscape slides or portrait reports without rebuilding your chart.
Value Labels on Every Bar
Toggle value labels on or off, add a prefix (like '$') or suffix (like 'K'), and keep the chart clean or data-dense as needed.
Live Preview as You Edit
Every change — adding a row, swapping a color, resizing bars — reflects instantly so there is no wait and no guessing.
AI-Assisted Generation
Describe your financial scenario in plain language and the AI builds a waterfall chart with realistic segments and labels in seconds.
Add Your Data Your Way
Type It In
Enter labels and values directly into the waterfall table — no spreadsheet required.
Paste from Excel
Copy your data from Excel or Google Sheets and paste it straight into the chart.
Upload a File
Import a CSV or Excel file and let MakeCharts map your columns automatically (Pro).
Describe with AI
Tell the AI what your waterfall should show and get a ready-made chart in seconds.
Share and Export Instantly
Download as PNG or SVG
Export a high-resolution waterfall chart for slides, reports, or social posts.
Share a Link
Get a shareable URL so colleagues can view or clone your waterfall chart.
Embed on Any Site
Drop an embed code into your website or blog to show a live waterfall chart (Plus and above).
Use in Presentations
Paste a clean waterfall image directly into PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides.
About MakeCharts
MakeCharts is a free online chart maker built for speed and clarity. It covers 50+ chart types — including a dedicated waterfall chart builder — with plain-language controls and AI assistance. No setup, no design skills, no Excel workarounds required.
- ✓50+ chart types including waterfall, bar, line, funnel, and more
- ✓AI chart generation from plain-language descriptions
- ✓Export as PNG or SVG — ready for slides, reports, and websites
- ✓Free to use with no sign-up required
- ✓Paid plans for more AI credits, file upload, and embedding
- ✓Used by finance teams, educators, and content creators worldwide
Built for Speed and Clarity
How to Make a Waterfall Chart
Four steps from raw numbers to a finished chart — faster than the Excel method.
Open the Waterfall Chart Maker
Navigate to the waterfall chart tool — no account needed to start. A sample chart loads immediately so you can see the layout.
Starting Balance, Revenue, Costs, and Net Profit are pre-filled as an example.
Enter Your Data
Add rows for each segment. Set the label, value, and type (Increase, Decrease, Total, or Subtotal). Reorder rows by dragging.
Label: 'Operating Costs', Value: -42000, Type: Decrease
Customize Colors and Layout
Pick colors for each bar type, toggle value labels, choose vertical or horizontal orientation, and adjust bar size to your liking.
Green for increases, red for decreases, grey for totals — your brand colors in seconds.
Export or Share
Download a high-resolution PNG or SVG, copy a shareable link, or grab an embed code for your site.
Export as PNG and paste directly into your board deck or quarterly report.
Who Uses Waterfall Charts
Any time you need to show how a starting value becomes an ending value, a waterfall chart tells that story clearly.
P&L and Cash Flow Bridges
Show how revenue, expenses, and adjustments combine to produce net income. Waterfall charts make variance analysis easy to follow in board presentations and audits.
Revenue and Margin Analysis
Illustrate how pricing changes, new products, and churn affect total revenue. Stakeholders grasp the contribution of each driver without reading a table.
Budget Tracking and Burn
Track how initial budget is consumed by each project phase or cost center and show what remains. Helps project leads spot overruns before they escalate.
Income and Expense Summaries
Visualize monthly cash flow from take-home pay through fixed and variable expenses to savings. A waterfall makes spending patterns obvious at a glance.
MakeCharts vs Making a Waterfall Chart in Excel
Excel can produce waterfall charts — but only after significant manual workarounds.
Waterfall Chart in Excel
- ✗Requires stacked invisible bars before Excel 2016, still limited after
- ✗Manual calculation of floating bar start positions
- ✗Reformatting needed every time data changes
- ✗Color-coding each bar type is tedious and error-prone
- ✗Sharing means sending a file or a screenshot
- ✗No AI assistance for layout or labeling
Waterfall Chart on MakeCharts
- ✓Dedicated waterfall builder with native bar types — no formulas needed
- ✓Floating segments are calculated and drawn automatically
- ✓Live preview updates instantly as you edit data
- ✓One-click color assignment per bar type (increase, decrease, total, subtotal)
- ✓Share via link, embed, or download PNG/SVG
- ✓AI generates a complete waterfall chart from a plain-language description
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make a waterfall chart in Excel?
In Excel 2016 and later, insert a 'Waterfall' chart from the chart gallery. In older versions you must build it with stacked invisible bars, which requires manual offset calculations. MakeCharts offers a dedicated waterfall tool that skips all of that — just add your labels, values, and bar types, and the chart draws itself.
What is a waterfall chart used for?
A waterfall chart shows how an initial value is affected by a series of positive and negative changes to reach a final value. It is most common in finance for P&L bridges, cash flow analysis, and budget variance, but also useful in project management and personal budgeting.
Can I create a waterfall chart without Excel?
Yes. MakeCharts is a free online waterfall chart maker that requires no Excel installation or spreadsheet skills. Enter your data directly, choose bar types, customize colors, and export in minutes — all in your browser.
What is the difference between a waterfall chart and a bar chart?
A standard bar chart shows each value as an independent bar from zero. A waterfall chart shows bars that float at the cumulative total, so each segment visually builds on the previous one. This makes it easy to trace how individual items contribute to a final total or net value.
How do I show subtotals in a waterfall chart?
In MakeCharts, set a bar's type to 'Subtotal' to draw it as a full bar anchored at zero rather than a floating segment. This is useful for mid-point checkpoints like gross profit before you continue with further deductions.
Designed for Everyone
- ✓No design or spreadsheet experience required — just enter your numbers
- ✓Works in 12+ languages so your team can use it wherever they are
- ✓Fully responsive — build and view waterfall charts on any device
- ✓Plain-language AI input means you can describe your chart instead of configuring it
- ✓Free tier includes every waterfall feature with no paywall
- ✓Simple enough for students, powerful enough for finance professionals
Your Data Stays Yours
- •Chart data you enter is used only to render your chart
- •We do not sell or share your data with third parties
- •You control what is published — charts are private by default
- •Delete your account and data at any time
- •No tracking of the specific values you enter into charts
Build Your Waterfall Chart Now
Skip the Excel workarounds. Your first waterfall chart is ready in under two minutes.