Examples · Pie chart

Pie chart examples

A pie chart answers exactly one question: how does the whole divide up? This engine draws its pies as donuts — the ring keeps the center free for labels and reads cleaner at small sizes — and the examples here show the shape doing what it does best: a few slices, one obvious story.

When to use it

Part-to-whole with a handful of slices — market share, budget split, answer distribution
When one slice dominating IS the story ('heating is half the bill')
Quick composition summaries where precision matters less than proportion

Not the right shape?

More than five or six slices, or slices of nearly equal size — human eyes rank angles poorly. A sorted bar chart makes those comparisons honest.

Real-world examples

Budget split in dollars

The same shape carrying absolute amounts: the tooltip still shows each slice's share of the whole.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec

{
  "type": "donut",
  "theme": "ink",
  "title": "Team budget by line",
  "source": "FY26 plan",
  "options": {
    "format": "currency:USD"
  },
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Salaries",
      "Tools",
      "Cloud",
      "Travel"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Budget",
        "values": [
          428000,
          61000,
          47000,
          24000
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Survey answers as shares

Four options, one clear winner — the case where a pie earns its place over bars.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec

{
  "type": "donut",
  "theme": "editorial",
  "title": "Preferred work setup",
  "source": "Internal survey, 412 answers",
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Hybrid",
      "Remote",
      "Office",
      "No preference"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Share",
        "values": [
          46,
          31,
          15,
          8
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Open this chart in a maker Pie chart maker from scratch

Questions people ask

When should I use a pie chart?

When the whole is meaningful, the slices are few, and one of them carries the headline. If readers need to compare slice against slice precisely, or you have more than about six categories, a sorted bar chart will serve them better.

Why are these drawn as donuts?

A donut is a pie with the center opened up. Proportions read the same, small sizes render cleaner, and the hole leaves room for a headline figure. It's the one circular shape this engine draws, and that's a deliberate choice, not a missing feature.