How to Make a Combo Chart in Power BI with AI
A combo chart is one of the most effective ways to tell a clear story with your data, especially when you're comparing two metrics with completely different scales. This article will show you exactly how to make one in Power BI. We’ll cover the classic, manual method and a much faster way using Power BI’s built-in AI to get the job done in seconds.
What is a Combo Chart and When Should You Use One?
A combo chart, short for "combination chart," combines two different types of charts into a single visual. The most common combination is a column chart and a line chart. This simple pairing is incredibly powerful because it allows you to visualize two different data sets on the same graph, even if they're measured in completely different units.
Think about it: you want to show your monthly sales revenue (measured in thousands of dollars) alongside your customer satisfaction score (measured on a scale of 1-5). If you tried plotting both on the same axis, the customer satisfaction scores would barely show up as a tiny blip at the bottom. The huge revenue numbers would completely dominate the scale.
A combo chart solves this by using two different Y-axes (the vertical axes). The left Y-axis can display the scale for your primary metric (like sales revenue), while the right Y-axis displays the scale for your secondary metric (like customer satisfaction). Both metrics are plotted against the same shared X-axis (the horizontal axis), which is typically a time period or category.
Common Scenarios for Using a Combo Chart:
Sales Performance: Show monthly sales revenue (columns) against the gross profit margin percentage (line). This immediately shows if higher revenue is actually leading to higher profitability.
Marketing Campaign Analysis: Plot ad spend per campaign (columns) versus the click-through rate or conversion rate (line). This helps you spot which campaigns are most efficient.
Website Analytics: Compare the number of website sessions (columns) to the site's goal conversion rate (line) over time. Are traffic spikes actually leading to more sign-ups?
Operational Efficiency: Visualize the number of units produced (columns) alongside the defect rate percentage (line) to track quality control against production volume.
In each case, you are comparing a volume metric (revenue, spend, sessions) with a rate or ratio metric (margin, CTR, defect rate). This is where combo charts shine.
Preparing Your Data for a Combo Chart
Before you start building visuals, a quick data check will save you headaches later. For a combo chart in Power BI, your data model should reliably contain:
A category or date field: This will be your shared X-axis. For example, Month, Year, Product Category, or Campaign Name.
At least two numerical fields: These are the values you want to plot. One will be your columns (e.g., Total Sales) and the other will be your line (e.g., Profit Margin %).
Correct data types: Make sure Power BI recognizes your date field as a date, and your numerical fields as numbers (like whole number, decimal, or fixed decimal). You can check and change these data types in the Power Query Editor or in the Data view. Clean data is the foundation of any good report.
Method 1: The Classic Way to Build a Combo Chart Manually
This is the traditional drag-and-drop method. It gives you full control and is a great way to understand how Power BI visualizations work under the hood. Follow these steps to build your first chart.
Step 1: Select the Combo Chart Visual
In your Power BI Desktop report, navigate to the Visualizations pane on the right-hand side. Find the icon for the "Line and stacked column chart" (or "Line and clustered column chart") and click it once. A blank visual placeholder will appear on your report canvas.
Step 2: Drag and Drop Your Data Fields
With the new blank visual selected, you’ll see several "wells" or fields appear in the Visualizations pane below the icons. This is where you tell Power BI what data to use for each part of the chart.
Shared axis: Drag your category or date field here. For this example, let's use a MonthName field. This populates the horizontal X-axis.
Column values: Drag the first numerical metric you want to display as bars. Let's use Sales Revenue. You'll see columns appear on your chart.
Line values: Drag your second numerical metric here. Let's use Gross Profit %. A line will now appear, overlaid on top of your columns.
At first, the line might look very flat at the bottom, just like our earlier example. This is because both sales revenue (in thousands) and Gross Profit % (a decimal value, likely less than 1) are being plotted against the same left Y-axis. The next step fixes this.
Step 3: Format Your Chart for Clarity
An unformatted chart sends the wrong message. A well-formatted one delivers clear insights. Select your chart, then click the paintbrush icon ("Format your visual") in the Visualizations pane to open the formatting options.
Enable the Secondary Y-Axis
This is the most important formatting step for a combo chart.
Expand the Y-axis section in the formatting pane.
Scroll down and find the section for the Secondary Y-axis.
Toggle this On.
Instantly, a new axis will appear on the right side of your chart, and your line will adjust to its own scale. Now you can clearly see the relationship between the two metrics! Be sure to give both Y-axes clear titles so your audience knows what's being measured. You can do this under the Y-axis > Title options for both the primary and secondary axes.
Improve General Readability
Title: Give your chart a clear, descriptive title, such as "Sales Revenue vs. Gross Profit % by Month."
Colors: Under Columns and Lines, adjust the colors to provide strong contrast and align with your brand or report theme.
Data Labels: Toggle Data labels on to show the specific values for each column and data point on the line. This saves your viewers from having to guess or mouse over every point.
Markers: In the Lines > Markers section, you can turn on markers to make each data point on the line chart stand out more clearly.
Method 2: The Faster, Smarter Way with Power BI Q&A (AI)
If you prefer speed and want to feel like a data wizard, Power BI’s Q&A feature is for you. It uses natural language processing to create visuals based on questions you type in plain English. Instead of dragging, dropping, and clicking through menus, you can just tell Power BI what you want to see.
Step 1: Activate the Q&A Visual
Simply double-click on any empty space on your report canvas. Poof! A Q&A visual prompt appears, ready for your question.
Step 2: Ask a Question in Plain English
Now, just type what you want to create. Power BI is smart enough to understand common business terms, abbreviations, and chart types. The key is to be descriptive. For the best results, structure your request to include the metrics, the category, and the chart type.
Here are some examples of effective prompts:
Show total sales revenue and gross profit % by month as a combo chart
Create a line and column chart of website sessions vs conversion rate over time
Plot ad spend and CTR as a combo chart by campaign name
As you type, Power BI will suggest data fields from your model and generate a preview of the visual in real-time. It's often shockingly fast and accurate.
Step 3: Convert the Q&A Result to a Standard Visual
Once you are happy with the visual Q&A has created, you need to turn it into a permanent part of your report. Look for the small icon in the top-right corner of the Q&A visual that looks like a chart to "Turn this Q&A result into a standard visual." Click it.
The Q&A result is now a regular "Line and stacked column chart" visual in your report. It's no different from the one we created manually in Method 1.
Step 4: Fine-Tune and Format
The beauty of this method is that it gets you 90% of the way there in a fraction of the time. Now that it’s a standard visual, you can select it and use the same formatting options described in Method 1 (turning on the secondary y-axis, adjusting colors, adding data labels, etc.) to give it that final, polished look.
Final Thoughts
Creating a combo chart in Power BI is a fantastic way to compare disparate but related metrics in a single, intuitive visual. You have the choice between the classic, hands-on approach of building it manually for full control or using the incredibly efficient natural language Q&A feature to get to your insight faster than ever.
We believe using natural language to build reports is the future of data analytics, freeing teams from complex tools so they can focus on what the data actually says. That’s why we built Graphed to take this approach beyond a single BI tool. We connect all your disparate marketing and sales data sources - like Salesforce, Shopify, Google Analytics, and Facebook Ads - and let you build real-time, cross-platform dashboards simply by describing what you need. Instead of wrestling data into Power BI, you get instant answers and live dashboards without the heavy lifting.