How to Make a Mekko Chart in Excel

A Mekko chart is one of the most powerful ways to show complex data in a simple, visual format, but most people have never heard of it. This chart is perfect for displaying market share, budget allocations, or any dataset with multiple categories and sub-categories. This tutorial walks you through exactly what a Mekko Chart is and provides a step-by-step workaround to build one yourself in Microsoft Excel.

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What Exactly is a Mekko Chart?

Imagine crossing a 100% stacked column chart with a bar chart where the bar widths also mean something. That's a Mekko chart (also known as a Marimekko chart).

In a standard stacked column chart, each column has the same width. In a Mekko chart, the width of each column is proportional to a value, providing a second dimension to your analysis. This allows you to visualize three data points at once:

• A main category on the X-axis (e.g., Regions).
• Sub-categories that stack up to 100% in each column on the Y-axis (e.g., Product Market Share).
• The total value or influence of each main category, represented by the varying column widths (e.g., Total Sales per Region).

For example, you could show smartphone market share (the Y-axis segments) across different continents (the X-axis columns). In this scenario, the width of the column for North America would be wider than the column for Australia if North America had higher total sales, giving you an immediate visual cue about the market size of each continent.

Why Are They So Useful?

Mekko charts are uniquely effective for telling a "part-to-whole" story in two different directions simultaneously. They are especially popular in consulting and business strategy because they pack a lot of information into one view, helping to quickly identify the biggest segments and opportunities. They’re ideal for:

• Market Segmentation: See which products are most popular in your biggest-selling regions.
• Budget Analysis: Analyze departmental spending (stacked segments) while showing the relative size of each department's total budget (column width).
• Sales Performance: Break down sales by product line within different sales channels, where the width of each channel represents its total revenue contribution.

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The Bad News: Excel Doesn't Have a Mekko Chart Button

Before we go any further, it's important to know that Microsoft Excel doesn’t offer a built-in, one-click option to create a Mekko chart. The standard chart types can't handle variable column widths automatically. This is why you rarely see them in day-to-day reports.

But don't worry. With some clever data arrangement and the use of a different chart type - the 100% Stacked Area Chart - we can build a visually identical and highly effective Mekko chart. It takes a few extra steps, but the process is straightforward once you understand the logic behind it.

How to Make a Mekko Chart in Excel: Step-by-Step Guide

We're going to use a sample dataset showing sales of different beverage types (coffee, tea, juice) across three continents (Americas, Europe, Asia). The goal is to show each beverage's market share within each continent, while also showing which continent is our biggest market overall.

Here is our starting data:

This tutorial will involve four main stages:

1. Calculating the necessary height and width percentages.
2. Structuring a new "charting table" to feed into Excel.
3. Creating and configuring the 100% Stacked Area Chart.
4. Formatting the chart to look like a Mekko.

Step 1: Calculate the Height and Width Proportions

First, we need to convert our raw numbers into the percentages that will drive the chart's dimensions.

1. Calculate the 'Heights' (Y-Axis Percentages):

For each continent, calculate what percentage of that continent's total sales each beverage represents. This will determine the height of each segment in the stacked columns. To do this, first find the total sales for each continent. Then, divide each individual beverage sale by its continent's total.

For example, to get Coffee's percentage in the Americas: $2.5M / $5.6M ≈ 45%.

Your "height" calculation table should look like this:

2. Calculate the 'Widths' (X-Axis Percentages):

Next, determine how wide each column should be. The width is proportional to each continent's contribution to the grand total of sales. First, calculate the grand total ($5.6M + $4.8M + $7.1M = $17.5M). Then, divide each continent's total by this grand total.

For example, the width for Americas is: $5.6M / $17.5M ≈ 32%.

The "Cumulative" row is important - this tells us where each section begins and ends on the horizontal axis (from 0 to 100%).

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Step 2: Build the 'Charting Table'

This is the most critical step. A standard area chart draws sloped lines between points. To create the look of vertical bars, we need to give Excel "doubled-up" data points to force it to draw vertical lines.

Create a new table structured like the image below. The top row will list the start and end points of a region based on the cumulative width percentages we just calculated. Notice how the end percentage of one region is also the starting percentage of the next.

Here’s how to fill it out:

• The first column contains your beverage types.
• The top row contains your cumulative width percentages, with each intermediate point listed twice. So 0%, 32%, 32%, 60%, 60%, 100%.
• Now, populate the table by referencing the height percentages you calculated in Step 1.

This completed table is the data source for our chart.

Step 3: Insert the 100% Stacked Area Chart

Now we can create the visual.

1. Select your entire charting table, including the headers in the first column and the percentage row at the top.
2. Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
3. In the Charts group, click the Area Chart icon.
4. Choose the 100% Stacked Area chart.

Excel will produce a chart that looks something like this. It's not pretty yet, but you should be able to see the basic structure of the Mekko coming to life!

Step 4: Format and Clean Up the Chart

Finally, let's turn this into a polished Mekko chart.

1. Fix the Y-Axis: On the left-hand axis, the scale might go up to 120%. Right-click the axis, choose "Format Axis," and set the Maximum bounds to 1.0.
2. Fix the X-Axis: Your horizontal axis might look cluttered. Right-click it, choose "Format Axis," and in the Axis Options, set the Minimum to 0.0 and the Maximum to 1.0. In the Number section, change the format to "Percentage."
3. Add Vertical Lines (Optional but Recommended): To clearly separate the bars, click on the chart and go to "Chart Design" > "Add Chart Element" > "Gridlines" > "Primary Major Vertical". This creates vertical lines at your specified data points, making the chart much easier to read.
4. Add Labels: You'll likely need to add the continent labels (Americas, Europe, Asia) manually. The easiest way is to insert text boxes (Insert > Text Box) and place them along the bottom of the chart. For data labels on the segments, right-click a colored area, choose "Add Data Labels," and then format as needed.
5. Final Polish: Give your chart a clear title, adjust the colors of each area to match your branding, and refine the legend's position.

You can now see at a glance not only the market share of each beverage within a continent but also that Asia is your largest market and is dominated by Tea and Juice sales.

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Beyond Excel: Easier Routes to Advanced Charts

Creating a Mekko chart in Excel is a satisfying workaround, but it highlights a core challenge: spreadsheets aren't always designed for complex, multi-dimensional analysis. The process of building helper tables is clever, but it's also time-consuming, prone to error, and hard to update.

When you find yourself spending more time fighting with chart settings than analyzing the data itself, it might be time to look at tools built for a more streamlined experience:

• Excel Add-ins: Several third-party add-ins for Excel (like Peltier Tech or Mekko Graphics) can create these charts for you with a few clicks. They are user-friendly but often come with a subscription fee.
• Business Intelligence Tools: Platforms like Tableau or Power BI are built for advanced data visualization and can produce Mekko (or similar Marimekko) charts far more easily. They have a steeper learning curve but offer much more power and flexibility.

Final Thoughts

The Mekko chart is an excellent tool for visualizing complex, layered data on a single canvas. Although Excel doesn't support them natively, creating one is absolutely possible by transforming your data and using a 100% Stacked Area chart - allowing you to present insights that would otherwise require multiple charts or tables.

Of course, the manual setup for charts like this in a spreadsheet can feel like a chore, especially when you're busy. Every hour spent wrangling helper tables is an hour not spent acting on your data. Here at Graphed, we created a way to get instantly to the insight. You can connect all your critical data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce - and simply ask for the visual you need in plain English. Instead of building that beverage chart step-by-step, you could just ask, "Create a dashboard showing our beverage sales percentage by continent, weighting each continent by its total sales," and get a real-time, interactive visual in seconds.