How to Change Pie Chart Percentage in Google Sheets

Working with pie charts in Google Sheets is usually straightforward, but getting the percentages to show up exactly how you want can feel like searching for a hidden setting. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about displaying and customizing percentages on your pie charts. We’ll cover how to add percentage labels to your slices, fine-tune their formatting, and use a few simple tricks for even greater control.

First, Let's Make a Basic Pie Chart

Before we can change percentages, we need a chart to work with. If you already have a pie chart, you can skip to the next section. If not, follow these quick steps.

1. Set Up Your Data

A pie chart needs two columns of data to work: one for the categories (the labels for your slices) and one for the corresponding numerical values. The chart will represent each value as a "slice of the pie," showing its proportion relative to the total sum.

Let's use a simple example of monthly sources of website traffic. Your data in Google Sheets would look something like this:

• Column A: Your categories (e.g., Traffic Source)
• Column B: Your numerical values (e.g., Sessions)

For example:

2. Insert the Chart

With your data ready, creating the chart takes just a few clicks:

1. Select your data: Drag your cursor to highlight all the cells containing your data, including the headers (e.g., A1 through B6).
2. Insert Chart: Go to the menu bar at the top and click Insert > Chart.
3. Choose a Pie Chart: Google Sheets will often default to a pie chart if your data is well-suited for it. If not, the 'Chart editor' pane will appear on the right side of your screen. Under the 'Setup' tab, click the 'Chart type' dropdown and select 'Pie chart' from the options.

You should now have a basic pie chart on your sheet. You’ll notice that when you hover over a slice, a tooltip appears showing the raw value and the calculated percentage. But our goal is to display that percentage directly on the chart itself.

How to Show Percentages on Your Pie Chart Slices

By default, your brand-new pie chart might not display any labels on the slices. Getting the percentages to show up is handled in the chart customization settings. This is where most people get tripped up - it's located in a dropdown menu that isn't immediately obvious.

Here's the step-by-step process:

1. Double-click anywhere on your pie chart to open the Chart editor on the right.
2. In the editor, click on the Customize tab.
3. Expand the Pie chart section by clicking on its title.
4. Here, you'll find a dropdown menu for Slice label. Click it to see your options.

You have a few choices for what to display on each slice:

• None: Removes all labels from the slices.
• Label: Shows the category name from your first column ("Organic Search," "Paid Social," etc.).
• Value: Shows the raw numerical value from your second column ("1250," "875," etc.).
• Percentage: This is what we're looking for! This option displays the calculated percentage for each slice.

For even more context, you can also select Value and percentage or show the Label and percentage to display both pieces of information simultaneously. Choosing Percentage is often the cleanest way to communicate the data.

Once you select 'Percentage,' your pie chart will instantly update, and each slice will now have its corresponding percentage clearly displayed.

Improving Label Readability

Beneath the Slice label option, you’ll find formatting tools for the labels themselves. You can adjust the Label font, font size, and text color. If your percentage labels are hard to read against a specific slice color, changing the text color to white or bolding the font can make a big difference.

Advanced Control: Customizing Percentage Formatting

What if you want more control? For instance, what if you want to show percentages with two decimal places, or merge the label and the percentage into a single, custom format? Google Sheets' Chart editor doesn't offer a direct way to change the decimal places on these automatically generated percentages. You can't just click a button to change '35%' to '35.24%'.

But fear not! You can gain full control by creating the percentages yourself in a helper column.

Method 1: Creating a Pre-Formatted Percentage Column (For Decimal Control)

This method involves calculating the percentages in a separate column. Because you control the column, you also control its formatting, including the number of decimals shown.

Step 1: Create a "Percentage" Helper Column

In the column next to your values (Column C), create a formula to calculate the percentage for each category. Using our previous example, in cell C2, you would type:

=B2/SUM($B$2:$B$6)

Quick breakdown of this formula:

• B2 is the value for the first category.
• SUM($B$2:$B$6) calculates the total sum of all values. The $ signs lock the range, so it doesn't change when you drag the formula down.

Step 2: Drag the Formula Down and Format the Column

Click the small blue square in the bottom-right corner of cell C2 and drag it down to apply the formula to the other rows. The cells will now show decimal values (e.g., 0.3521...). To turn these into readable percentages, select the entire column, go to Format > Number > Percent, then use the 'Increase decimal places' or 'Decrease decimal places' buttons on the toolbar to get your desired format.

Step 3: Update a new Pie chart's source data range using Column C instead of Column B to create pie chart of the percentages of your series

Method 2: Creating Custom, Combined Labels with a Helper Column

This technique goes a step further and is incredibly useful for creating presentation-ready charts. It allows you to combine the category name, the raw value, and the formatted percentage into one dynamic label. The trick is to create the complete label in a helper column and then use that column for your chart's labels.

Step 1: Create a "Custom Label" Column

Let's use a new helper column (e.g., Column D in your sheet). We'll use a formula to combine text and numbers. Let's create 'Organic Search: 1,250 (35.2%)' for the first row. Here's a powerful formula template using the TEXT formula:

=A2 & ": " & TEXT(B2, "#,##0") & " (" & TEXT((B2/SUM($B$2:$B$6)), "0.0%") & ")"

Let's unpack that formula:

• = - Start your formula with an equal sign.
• A2 & ": ": Takes your category name 'Organic Search' and adds a colon and space.
• TEXT(B2, "#,##0"): Formats the numeric value with a comma for thousands, e.g., '1,250'.
• & " (": Adds the start of the parentheses for the percentage text.
• TEXT((B2/SUM($B$2:$B$6)), "0.0%"): Calculates the percentage and formats it, e.g., '(35.2%)'.

Once the chart has been made, we need only one more thing to get a perfectly formatted chart. In your chart editor, click on setup, then choose your custom label column you just created for the 'Label' section, and select the 'Value' column to get its correct position.

Now, when going back into 'Customization settings' for the last time, in the chart dropdown, select 'LABEL' from all the options. The label you've created will show 'Organic Search: 1,250 (35.2%)', and you're done!

Final Thoughts

Mastering percentages on your pie charts in Google Sheets is all about knowing where to find the Slice label setting for basic displays and using helper columns for advanced customizations. By calculating percentages and creating custom labels in your source data, you can override the defaults and display your data exactly as you need - to the exact decimal point.

While perfecting charts in a spreadsheet works, it often involves a lot of manual data preparation, especially when pulling information from different platforms. We built Graphed to remove this friction. Instead of juggling helper columns and CSV exports from Google Analytics, Shopify, or your ad platforms, you can connect your accounts in seconds. From there, just ask a question like, "create a pie chart of our top traffic sources for the last 30 days," and a live, professional dashboard materializes automatically. It frees you up to focus on the insights, not just the setup.