Examples · Waterfall chart

Waterfall chart examples

A waterfall chart — a bridge chart, in finance rooms — tells a total as a story: each step floats up from where the last one ended, and the closing column lands on the sum. The same rows a stacked bar shares out, told in order, so the reader sees not only the total but how it was assembled.

When to use it

  • Totals with a story: revenue by motion, budget by line, hours by phase — where the order of contributions means something
  • Answering 'what got us to this number?' in one picture, steps and sum together
  • Finance-style walk-throughs — the bridge chart your CFO already reads fluently

Not the right shape?

Decreases — this engine draws non-negative steps today, so a walk that goes down (churn, refunds, drawdowns) would lie here. A signed flow still belongs to a table or a pair of charts.

Real-world examples

A budget, line by line

options.total takes a label of its own — the closing column says what the sum is, not merely that there is one. Engineering dominates, and the chart shows by how much before anyone reads a number.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec 
{
  "type": "waterfall",
  "theme": "ink",
  "title": "Launch budget by line",
  "source": "Project plan, approved",
  "options": {
    "total": "Total budget",
    "format": "currency:USD"
  },
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Design",
      "Engineering",
      "Content",
      "Ads"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Budgeted",
        "values": [
          1800,
          4200,
          900,
          2100
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Minutes into a build

Time decomposes the same way money does: each stage floats from the last one's end, and the tests visibly own half the wait. Order is the point — these steps happen in exactly this sequence, and the chart says so.

Open in maker with this data

View the spec 
{
  "type": "waterfall",
  "theme": "glass",
  "title": "Release build by stage (minutes)",
  "source": "CI logs, median of last 20 runs",
  "options": {
    "total": "Whole build"
  },
  "data": {
    "labels": [
      "Install",
      "Compile",
      "Tests",
      "Bundle"
    ],
    "series": [
      {
        "name": "Minutes",
        "values": [
          2.5,
          3.1,
          6.4,
          1.2
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}
Open this chart in a maker Chart maker from scratch

Questions people ask

What is a waterfall chart?

A chart where each bar starts at the running total of everything before it, so the bars form a staircase toward the sum. Finance calls it a bridge chart. It shows contributions and their cumulative effect at once — a stacked bar in narrative order.

Can it show a decrease?

Not yet — the engine accepts non-negative steps only, and this page won't pretend otherwise. A walk with rises and falls (starting ARR, plus new, minus churn) needs signed steps; until the engine draws those honestly, keep signed flows in a live table.

Waterfall or stacked bar?

Both decompose a total. A stacked bar compares several totals side by side; a waterfall unrolls one total in sequence. If you have one sum and a story of how it accumulated, come here — if you have four quarters of sums, stack them.