How to Make a Sunburst Chart in Google Sheets

A sunburst chart is a fantastic way to visualize data that has a clear hierarchy, like breaking down a budget or analyzing website traffic sources. This article walks you through exactly how to prepare your data and create a polished, easy-to-read sunburst chart in Google Sheets.

Graphed

Your AI Data Analyst to Create Live Dashboards

Connect your data sources and let AI build beautiful, real-time dashboards for you in seconds.

Build Your First Dashboard

What is a Sunburst Chart?

Think of a sunburst chart as a multi-level pie chart. It's designed to show how different categories and sub-categories contribute to a whole. The chart consists of concentric rings, where each ring represents a level in your data's hierarchy.

• The Center Circle (The "Sun”): This represents the root of your hierarchy - the total or the top-level category. For example, "Total Annual Budget."
• The Inner Ring: This shows the breakdown of the central category. Using our budget example, this ring could represent departments like "Marketing," "Sales," and "Operations."
• The Outer Rings: Each subsequent ring drills down another level. The "Marketing" slice from the inner ring could be broken down further in an outer ring into "Paid Ads," "Content Creation," and "Events."

The size of each slice corresponds to its value, making it easy to see which sub-categories are the biggest contributors to their parent category.

When should you use a sunburst chart?

Sunburst charts shine when you have hierarchical data and want to see the part-to-whole relationship at multiple levels simultaneously. They are perfect for:

• Budget Breakdowns: See how a total budget is allocated across departments, then projects, then specific expenses.
• Sales Data: Analyze product sales by region, then by store, then by product category, and finally by individual product.
• Website Analytics: Visualize traffic sources by channel (e.g., Organic Search, Social Media), then by source/medium (e.g., google / organic, facebook / referral), and then by specific campaign.
• Organizational Structures: Show the hierarchy of a company from the CEO down to different departments and teams.

If you just need to compare simple categories without any parent-child relationship, a standard pie chart or bar chart is often a better choice. But for nested data, the sunburst is a powerful tool.

AI for Data Analysis

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF Guide

AI for Data Analysis Crash Course

Learn how to get AI to do data analysis for you — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to go from raw data to insights without writing a single line of code.

Download Free Guide

How to Prepare Your Data for a Sunburst Chart

The single most important step in creating a sunburst chart in Google Sheets is formatting your data correctly. The chart builder depends on a specific three-column structure to understand the parent-child relationships in your data. It won't work otherwise.

Your data needs to be organized into three columns:

1. Labels (Children): The name of each category or sub-category.
2. Parents: The name of the category the corresponding label belongs to. This column links children to their parents.
3. Size (Values): A number representing the value or size of each label.

Let's use an example of a quarterly marketing budget. Here is our hierarchical data:

• Total Budget: $100,000

Now, here's how you must structure that information in Google Sheets:

Key Formatting Rules:

• Column A (Label): Contains every single item, from the top-level parent down to the final child nodes. Notice how "Total Budget," "Digital Marketing," and "Content & SEO" appear in this column.
• Column B (Parent): This tells Google Sheets how the hierarchy works. "Digital Marketing" is a child of "Total Budget," and "Paid Search" is a child of "Digital Marketing."
• The Root Node: The very first entry, your main category ("Total Budget" here), must have an empty cell in the "Parent" column. This signals to Google Sheets that it's the center of the chart.
• Column C (Size): It’s best practice to only enter values for the lowest-level categories (the "leaves" of the tree). Google Sheets will automatically add these values up to calculate the size of the parent categories. In our example, we only assigned budget numbers to initiatives like "Paid Search" and "Freelance Writers." The chart will automatically calculate that "Digital Marketing" should have a total value of $70,000 ($35k + $25k + $10k).

Getting this structure right is 90% of the battle. If your chart isn't looking correct, double-check that your parent-child links are all set up properly and your root node has a blank parent.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Sunburst Chart

Once your data is formatted correctly, creating the chart is simple. Let's walk through it.

1. Select Your Data

Click and drag to highlight all the data you've prepared in your three columns, including the headers ("Label," "Parent," "Size").

2. Insert Chart

Navigate to the menu bar at the top of the screen and click Insert > Chart.

Google Sheets will insert a default chart type based on a guess, which will probably be a pie chart or a bar chart. Don't worry, we'll fix this in the next step.

Graphed

Your AI Data Analyst to Create Live Dashboards

Connect your data sources and let AI build beautiful, real-time dashboards for you in seconds.

Build Your First Dashboard

3. Choose the Sunburst Chart Type

The Chart editor sidebar should appear on the right. If it doesn't, just double-click on your new chart to open it.

Under the Setup tab in the Chart editor, click the dropdown menu under "Chart type." Scroll down to the bottom of the "Other" section and select the Sunburst chart.

Your chart should instantly transform into a sunburst visualization! Google Sheets is usually smart enough to map your columns correctly to "Label," "Parent," and "Size." If it looks wrong, just verify under the "Setup" tab that each field is pointing to the correct column in your data.

Customizing Your Sunburst Chart for Clarity

The default chart is great, but a few tweaks can make it much more polished and easier to understand. In the Chart editor, switch from the "Setup" tab to the Customize tab.

Sunburst Options

Click on the "Sunburst" section to expand its options. This is where the most important customizations happen.

• Max levels: This lets you control how many rings (levels of hierarchy) are displayed on the chart. If you have a very deep hierarchy, you can limit it to 2 or 3 levels to keep the chart from getting too crowded.
• Center label text: Add a descriptive label to the center circle. For our example, putting "$100k Budget" in the middle immediately tells the viewer what the chart is about.
• Sector label: Choose what information appears on each slice. You can show just the label, the value, or the percentage. Showing the percentage is often the most insightful option, as it clearly communicates how much each part contributes to its parent.

Colors and Styling

In the "Chart style" section, you can change the background color and font for the entire chart. More importantly, under the "Sunburst" section, you can manually change the color for each slice. This is incredibly useful for matching your brand colors or for highlighting a specific category you want to draw attention to. Just locate the slice's name in the color list and pick a new color.

AI for Data Analysis

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF Guide

AI for Data Analysis Crash Course

Learn how to get AI to do data analysis for you — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to go from raw data to insights without writing a single line of code.

Download Free Guide

Chart Title

Under "Chart & axis titles," give your chart a clear, descriptive title. Something like "Quarterly Marketing Budget Allocation" is much better than the default "Size vs. Label."

Tips for Better Sunburst Charts

To make your visualizations truly effective, keep these best practices in mind:

• Don't Go Too Deep: Sunburst charts become hard to read with more than 3-4 levels (rings). If your data is deeper than that, consider creating a more focused chart for the lower-level details.
• Avoid Too Many Slices: If a parent category has dozens of sub-categories, the chart will become crowded with tiny slivers. Try grouping your smallest items into a general "Other" category to keep things clean.
• Use Concise Labels: Long text labels will be difficult to fit and will make your chart look cluttered. Keep them short and to the point.
• Choose the Right Tool for the Job: Remember, sunburst charts are exclusively for hierarchical data. If your data doesn't have a parent-child structure, a different chart type will communicate your message more effectively.

Final Thoughts

Creating a sunburst chart in Google Sheets is a powerful way to bring hierarchical data to life. As long as you focus on formatting your data with the three-column parent-child structure, the actual chart creation process is straightforward, allowing you to quickly visualize complex breakdowns in a compelling way.

Getting insights shouldn't require turning into a spreadsheet expert. Often, the hardest part of reporting isn't making the chart - it's logging into a dozen platforms like Google Analytics, Shopify, and your ad accounts just to stitch the data together in the first place. That's why we built Graphed . It connects all your marketing and sales sources in one place, so instead of manually exporting CSVs, you simply ask for what you need. You can create entire dashboards in seconds with plain English, getting back hours of your week previously spent on manual reporting.