How to Make a Circle Chart in Google Sheets

A circle chart is an excellent way to show how different parts make up a whole, like how each marketing channel contributes to your total website traffic. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create and customize two types of circle charts - pie charts and doughnut charts - in Google Sheets, step-by-step.

What Are Circle Charts and When Should You Use Them?

Circle charts represent a single dataset as slices of a pie or sections of a ring, making it easy to see the proportional size of your data. The entire circle represents 100%, and each slice represents a percentage of that total.

There are two primary types of circle charts you can create in Google Sheets:

• Pie Charts: The classic circle chart where each wedge represents a category's share of the total. Google Sheets offers standard, 3D, and exploded pie chart variations.

• Doughnut Charts: Essentially a pie chart with the center cut out. This creates a ring shape and is often considered a more modern and slightly easier-to-read visualization. The hole in the middle also provides space to display a key metric, like the total value.

Use a circle chart when you want to visualize:

• Proportions or Percentages: They are perfect for showing the composition of something. For instance, breaking down a monthly budget into categories like "Rent," "Groceries," and "Utilities."

• Survey Results: Displaying responses to a multiple-choice question, like the distribution of answers to "What is your favorite social media platform?"

• Market Share: Comparing the market share of a few key competitors in an industry.

Preparing Your Data for a Circle Chart

Before you can make a chart, your data needs to be structured in a way Google Sheets can understand. A clean, simple layout is best.

For any circle chart, you only need two columns:

• Column A: The Labels. These are your categories - the names of each slice in the pie or doughnut.

• Column B: The Values. These are the numbers associated with each category. These values determine the size of each slice.

Here’s a sample dataset showing a breakdown of quarterly marketing spend. We'll use this data in our step-by-step examples.

Important Tip: Ensure that your value column contains only numbers. Including text or currency symbols directly in the cells (e.g., writing "$12,500" instead of just "12500") can sometimes cause charting errors. It's better to use Google Sheets' formatting options to add currency symbols after you've entered the clean data.

How to Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets (Step-by-Step)

With your data properly organized, creating the pie chart takes less than a minute. Let's use our sample marketing spend data.

Step 1: Enter and Select Your Data

Type your categories and values into two columns in your Google Sheet. Once entered, click and drag your mouse to highlight the entire data range, including the headers ("Marketing Channel" and "Spend"). Including the headers helps Google Sheets label your chart automatically.

Step 2: Insert the Chart

With your data selected, navigate to the top menu and click Insert > Chart. Google Sheets will automatically analyze your data and create what it thinks is the best chart type, which is often a pie chart for this kind of data structure.

Step 3: Select 'Pie Chart' if Needed

If Google Sheets didn’t default to a pie chart, don't worry. The Chart editor sidebar will appear on the right side of your screen. Under the Setup tab, click the dropdown menu under "Chart type" and select "Pie chart" from the list of options. You'll also see options for a 3D Pie Chart here.

How to Make a Doughnut Chart in Google Sheets

Making a doughnut chart is nearly identical to making a pie chart. It uses the same data structure and the initial steps are exactly the same.

Step 1: Select Your Data and Insert a Chart

Just like before, highlight your two columns of data (labels and values) and go to Insert > Chart.

Step 2: Choose 'Doughnut Chart' in the Chart Editor

In the Chart editor on the right, find the "Chart type" dropdown. Scroll down until you see the "Pie" section and select "Doughnut chart." Your chart will instantly update from a solid pie to a ring shape.

Customizing Your Circle Chart for Clarity and Impact

A default chart gets the job done, but a customized chart tells a better story. The Customize tab in the Chart editor is where you can adjust your chart’s appearance.

Chart Style

This is where you can change the basics of your chart’s look:

• Background color: Change the background of the chart box. A light grey or transparent background often looks cleaner.

• Font: Set a universal font for all text on the chart.

• Doughnut hole: For doughnut charts, you can specify the size of the center hole, from 25% to 75%. A hole of 50% is standard.

Pie Chart & Pie Slice

These sections provide deep control over the circle itself:

• Slice label: This is one of the most useful features. Instead of requiring people to look back and forth at the legend, you can add labels directly to the slices. You can choose to display the Label (category name), Value, Percentage, or all three. Displaying the percentage is highly recommended for clarity.

• Border color: Adding a white or light grey border around your slices can make them visually distinct.

• Slice Color: Click on any individual slice in the chart, and the editor will let you change its color. Use your brand colors, or use a bright, contrasting color to draw attention to the most important slice.

• Distance from center: To "explode" a slice and make it stand out, select it and change the distance from center. This pulls that single slice away from the rest of the pie, which is great for emphasis.

Chart & Axis Titles

Always give your chart a clear, descriptive title. Double-click the chart title on the chart itself or use this section to edit it. "Q3 Marketing Spend Breakdown" is much more informative than "Spend."

Legend

The legend explains what each color represents. You can change its position (top, bottom, right, left), font, and text color. If you've added labels directly to your slices, you might consider removing the legend entirely by setting its position to "None" to reduce clutter.

3 Tips for Better Circle Charts

Creating a chart is easy, but creating an effective one requires a bit of design thinking.

1. Use Fewer Than 7 Slices: Circle charts become cluttered and difficult to read when they have too many slices. If you have many small categories, consider grouping them into a single "Other" slice to keep your chart clean.

2. Order Slices Logically: Arrange your categories in a logical way before you create the chart. For example, sorting your values from largest to smallest will create a pie chart where the slices decrease in size in a clockwise direction, which is easier for the brain to process.

3. Label with Percentages: The primary purpose of a circle chart is to show proportions. Make this easy for your audience by labeling each slice with its percentage. This is clearer than forcing them to estimate the size visually.

Common Mistakes When Using Circle Charts

Circle charts are powerful but can be easily misused. Avoid these common pitfalls:

• Using Them for Changes Over Time: A pie chart shows a snapshot at one point in time. To show how data changes over weeks, months, or years, use a line chart or bar chart instead. A series of pie charts is not an effective way to show trends.

• Comparing Two Datasets: Trying to compare slices between two separate pie charts is nearly impossible for the human eye. If you want to compare the budget breakdown of Q3 vs. Q4, a grouped or stacked bar chart is a much better option.

• Using a 3D Pie Chart: While Google Sheets offers a 3D option, it can distort perception. The slices in the foreground appear larger than they actually are due to the perspective, which can be misleading. It's generally best to stick with a 2D pie or doughnut chart for accuracy.

Final Thoughts

Creating pie and doughnut charts in Google Sheets is an intuitive process once you have your data properly formatted in two simple columns. By thoughtfully customizing labels, colors, and titles, you can turn a basic chart into a clear and compelling visual that effectively communicates how parts contribute to a whole.

While Google Sheets is great for manual, one-off reports, bringing all your performance data together (like campaign costs from multiple ad platforms alongside sales data from Shopify) can still involve a lot of copying and pasting into those columns. At Graphed, we streamline this entire process for you. Because all your data sources are connected, you can simply ask questions in plain English, like "Show me our quarterly marketing spend as a pie chart," and instantly get a live, automated dashboard - no manual data entry required.