In Excel: select the category and count columns and choose Insert ▸ Insert Statistic Chart ▸ Pareto — Excel sorts the bars descending and adds the cumulative percentage line itself.
On this page7
Put the categories in one column and their counts in the next; no sorting is needed.
Select both columns including the headers.
Choose Insert ▸ Charts ▸ Insert Statistic Chart ▸ Pareto.
Right-click the horizontal axis ▸ Format Axis to group the long tail into an Overflow bin if there are many small categories.
Add data labels to the bars, and leave the percentage line unlabelled unless a specific threshold matters.
What this does
A Pareto chart is a sorted bar chart with a cumulative percentage line drawn over it on a secondary axis. It answers one question: how few categories account for most of the total. Since Excel 2016 it is a native statistic chart, so the sorting, the running total and the second axis are all handled by the chart type rather than by helper columns. The same idea underpins a lot of everyday Excel work, so the few minutes spent getting it right here pay back across every sheet you build afterwards. Treat it as a pattern, not a one-off, and it stops being something you look up and starts being something you reach for. The difference between a quick fix and a sheet you can trust is the extra minute you spend validating “pareto chart in excel”. Start on a copy or a tiny sample, keep the affected chart visible, and compare the result with the tool above before you touch the real workbook. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. The point is a visual that makes the number obvious at a glance, but the practical win is that someone else can open the file and understand what happened without asking you.
A worked example
Six defect types with counts 142, 96, 41, 22, 12 and 7 — 320 failures in total. Insert ▸ Insert Statistic Chart ▸ Pareto. The bars reorder themselves largest first and the cumulative line reaches 74% at the second bar (238 of 320), so two of the six defect types account for roughly three quarters of all failures. Prioritisation arguments are won with the cumulative line: it converts a list of complaints into a defensible claim about where two fixes remove most of the pain. A practical tip: try it on a copy of the sheet or a handful of sample rows first and check the result before you apply it to the real data. That one habit catches almost every surprise while it is still cheap to reverse.
In Google Sheets
This is a command rather than a formula, so there is no syntax to carry over. Google Sheets arranges its commands in menus across the top instead of a ribbon, names some of them differently and does not have every Excel command — look for the equivalent in the Sheets menus or its help before assuming the steps match. Keep this page bookmarked for the next time the same question comes up. Better still, repeat the steps once in your own workbook — doing it yourself is what turns a copied answer into something you remember. If you take one thing from this page on “pareto chart in excel”, make it the order of checks rather than the individual clicks: confirm what is selected, apply the step, and look at the result before moving on. That small routine is what keeps Excel work predictable when the same task comes back in a slightly different workbook.
Common mistakes
- Feeding it percentages instead of counts, which makes the cumulative line meaningless.
- Charting thirty categories, where the tail is unreadable and an Overflow bin would tell the same story.
- Comparing counts of things with different costs — twenty cheap defects can outrank one expensive one and hide the real problem.
- Building it manually in Excel 2013 or earlier and forgetting to sort descending, which breaks the cumulative reading entirely.
Frequently asked questions
Which version has the Pareto chart?
Excel 2016 and later, including Microsoft 365, under Insert ▸ Insert Statistic Chart.
How do I build one without the native type?
Sort descending, add a cumulative percentage column, chart both, then move the percentage series to a secondary axis and change it to a line.
Can I group the small categories?
Yes. Format Axis has Overflow bin and Underflow bin settings that collect the tail into one bar.
Why does the line not reach 100%?
The axis maximum was changed by hand. Set the secondary axis maximum back to 1.0 (100%).