Free Pareto Chart Template for Excel
A Pareto chart ranks the causes of a problem from most to least frequent, so you can see the few that drive most of it. Type your causes and counts into the free Excel template in any order: it sorts them, calculates the cumulative percentage and draws the chart for you. A worked customer complaint example shows how to read the result.
What is in the pack
- Filled-in example: one month of customer complaints, sorted, with the Pareto chart
- Blank Pareto chart template: enter causes and counts; sorting, share, cumulative % and the top 80% marker are calculated by formula
- Bar and cumulative line chart that updates as you type, with no macros
- A how-to sheet and the most common mistakes
- A one-page Pareto worksheet as a Word document and a printable PDF (example + blank)
What is a Pareto chart?
A Pareto chart is a bar chart of causes sorted from largest to smallest, with a line that shows the cumulative percentage of the total. The bars show which causes are biggest; the line shows how much of the problem the first few add up to. Read it from left to right and stop where the line crosses 80%: the bars up to that point are where to start.
It is named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that about 80% of the land in Italy was owned by about 20% of the people. The quality management pioneer Joseph M. Juran applied the idea to quality problems, named it the Pareto principle and described the causes as "the vital few and the useful many".
That is why it is also called the 80/20 rule. The split is a tendency, not a law: in your data it may be 70/30 or 90/10. What matters is that causes are rarely equal, so a few of them deserve your effort first.
When to use a Pareto chart
- You have many complaint, defect or ticket reasons and need to decide where to start
- You want to check whether a fix worked, by comparing the chart before and after
- You need to show your team or leadership, with data, why one problem comes first
Example: 1,240 customer complaints in one month
Illustrative example, not customer data. An online retailer grouped one month of complaint tickets by reason and sorted them, largest first.
| # | Complaint reason | Count | Share | Cumulative | Top 80% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Late delivery | 486 | 39.2% | 39.2% | Top 80% |
| 2 | Damaged item | 312 | 25.2% | 64.4% | Top 80% |
| 3 | Refund paid late | 198 | 16.0% | 80.3% | Top 80% |
| 4 | Wrong item sent | 74 | 6.0% | 86.3% | |
| 5 | Could not reach customer service | 52 | 4.2% | 90.5% | |
| 6 | Discount code did not work | 41 | 3.3% | 93.8% | |
| 7 | Item not as described | 33 | 2.7% | 96.5% | |
| 8 | Billing error | 23 | 1.9% | 98.3% | |
| 9 | Other | 21 | 1.7% | 100.0% | |
| Total | 1,240 | 100% |
Pareto chart: the bars show complaint counts, the line shows the cumulative %
Three of the nine reasons (late delivery, damaged items and late refunds) account for 80.3% of complaints: a third of the causes, four fifths of the complaints. The team should start there; the other six reasons add up to less than 20%.
How to make a Pareto chart in Excel with the template
- 1Pick the problem and the period, for example "all customer complaints in October". Make the period long enough to smooth out one-off spikes.
- 2Define the categories so that each record fits exactly one.
- 3Count the records in each category, then type the causes and counts into columns A and B of the Pareto template sheet, in any order.
- 4The template sorts the causes largest first and calculates each share and the cumulative %. The formulas also work in Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
- 5The chart updates as you type: bars for the counts, a line for the cumulative %, and a dashed line at 80%.
- 6Take the causes up to where the line crosses 80% and run a root cause analysis on each. After the fixes, make the chart again and check that those bars got smaller.
Common mistakes
Letting "Other" grow too big.
If it is more than 5-10% of the total, a real cause is hiding in it. Open those records and reclassify them.
Recording symptoms as causes.
"Customer unhappy" is not a category. Use an observable reason such as "late delivery".
Counting only frequency.
A rare but costly cause, such as a refund paid for the wrong amount, can rank low by count. Make a second Pareto by cost when that matters.
Expecting exactly 80/20.
The split can be 70/30 or 90/10. What matters is whether a few causes stand out.
Using too short a period.
One week of data can make a random spike look like the biggest cause.
Treating the chart as the answer.
A Pareto chart tells you which cause to look at, not why it happens. For that you need 5 Whys or a fishbone diagram.
After the Pareto chart: 5 Whys and fishbone
A Pareto chart answers "where do we start?". The next step is to find the root cause of each cause you picked. In the example, the team went on like this:
5 Whys
When the cause has one clear chain. For late deliveries, five "whys" led to the carrier moving its pickup time earlier while the delivery promise on the checkout page stayed the same.
Free 5 Whys templateFishbone diagram
When the possible causes span several areas. For damaged items, the team listed possible causes in packaging, the warehouse, the carrier and the product on a fishbone, then checked them against the data.
Free fishbone diagram templateFMEA
To prevent problems before they happen. Once the root causes were found, the team scored the returns process with an FMEA to see where the same kind of failure could show up next.
Free FMEA templateMake the Pareto chart again after the fixes: if the biggest bars do not shrink, you have not found the root cause.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Pareto chart?
A bar chart of causes sorted from most to least frequent, with a line that shows the cumulative percentage. It shows which few causes make up most of a problem, so you know where to start.
How do I make a Pareto chart in Excel?
With this template, type your causes and counts in any order: the sheet sorts them, calculates the cumulative % and draws the chart. Without a template, Excel 2016 and later (including Microsoft 365) has a built-in Pareto chart: select the causes and counts, then choose Insert > Insert Statistic Chart > Pareto. It sorts the bars and adds the cumulative line, but it does not draw an 80% line or mark the top causes.
Does the 80/20 rule always hold?
No, it is a tendency, not a law. In the example, three of nine causes make up 80.3% of complaints, but your split may be 70/30 or 90/10. If all the bars are about the same height, try defining the categories differently.
Does the template work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the .xlsx file to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets; the sorting and percentage formulas keep working. If the chart does not appear, rebuild it with Insert > Chart as a combo chart: columns for the counts and a line on the right axis for the cumulative %.
Is the Pareto chart template free?
Yes. The printable PDF downloads without an email. The Excel workbook and the Word worksheet are sent to your email for free.
What if I have thousands of complaints?
Sorting complaints into categories by hand works on a sample but gets hard with thousands of records. Pivony runs root cause analysis on all of your customer feedback, not a sample.
Have thousands of complaints, reviews or tickets?
Pivony runs root cause analysis on all of your customer feedback, not a workshop sample.
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