Funnel Chart
Also called: Conversion funnel, Sales funnel chart
A funnel chart shows how many people or items make it through each stage of a process, such as visit → sign-up → purchase, with each stage narrower than the last.
How to read a funnel chart
Each bar is a stage, top to bottom in process order. The bar’s width is the count at that stage. The useful number is usually the drop between stages, the conversion rate, so good funnels label it directly instead of making readers do the maths.
In the example above, the biggest leak is visit → sign-up (only 20% convert), so that’s where to look first.
Common uses
- Marketing: visit → lead → MQL → SQL
- Product: sign-up → activated → retained → paid
- Sales pipeline: prospect → qualified → proposal → won
- Hiring: applied → screened → interviewed → offered
Best practices
- Label conversion rates, not just counts.
- Keep it to 3–6 stages. More than that and the bottom stages become unreadable slivers.
- Pair it with a trend. A funnel is a snapshot. Add a line chart of the key conversion rate over time so people can see whether it’s improving.
Mocking up a funnel
Stage definitions (“what counts as activated?”) cause most funnel arguments. Put the stage names on the mockup and get sign-off on them before anyone builds the logic.
