Examples · Lollipop chart

Lollipop chart examples

A lollipop chart is the bar chart on a diet: a thin stem to the value and a dot at its head. Less ink means the caveats stand out — each example below carries its footnotes as chips on the chart itself, and hovering a dot reads them back.

When to use it

  • Ranking many categories where solid bars would read as a wall of ink
  • Price and fee comparisons whose fine print matters — the note chips keep caveats on the chart
  • Two or three series per category: the stems drop away and paired dots compare positions cleanly

Not the right shape?

Change over time — stems have no order of their own, so a trend belongs to a line graph. And parts of a whole still read best as a donut.

Real-world examples

Annual vs monthly billing

Two series turn the lollipops into a Cleveland dot plot: stems and printed values drop away, the paired dots carry the comparison, and the tooltip keeps the numbers.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec 
{
  "type": "lollipop",
  "theme": "ink",
  "title": "Advertised rate by billing period",
  "source": "Pricing pages, August 2026",
  "options": {
    "format": "currency:USD"
  },
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Skool Pro",
      "Mighty Networks Launch"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Annual billing",
        "values": [
          99,
          129
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Monthly billing",
        "values": [
          99,
          145
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

A plain leaderboard

No caveats, no chips — just ranked values with the dot marking each total and the stem tying it to the axis.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec 
{
  "type": "lollipop",
  "theme": "mint",
  "title": "Requests closed by agent",
  "source": "Helpdesk report, week 37",
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Ana",
      "Boris",
      "Chen",
      "Dana",
      "Eli"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Closed",
        "values": [
          34,
          29,
          27,
          21,
          12
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}
Open this chart in a maker Chart maker from scratch

Questions people ask

What is a lollipop chart?

A bar chart drawn with minimal ink: a thin line (the stem) runs from the axis to each value, ending in a dot. It shows exactly what a bar chart shows, but the lighter marks leave room for labels and annotations to breathe.

Lollipop or bar chart?

The same data fits both, and the engine morphs between them. Reach for lollipops when there are many rows, when printed values and note chips need space, or when two series should read as paired dots rather than paired bars.