How to Show YoY Growth in Excel Chart
Tracking Year-over-Year (YoY) growth is essential for measuring your business momentum and understanding performance beyond seasonal fluctuations. While calculating the number is simple, effectively visualizing that growth in a chart can be tricky. This article will guide you through calculating YoY growth in Excel and show you three clear methods for creating charts that bring your data to life.
What is YoY Growth and Why Is It So Important?
Year-over-Year (YoY) growth compares a metric for a specific period (like a month or quarter) against the same period from the previous year. For example, comparing sales from March 2024 to sales from March 2023 is a YoY analysis.
This metric is critical for a few key reasons:
It neutralizes seasonality. A retailer will always sell more in December than in January. Comparing one month to the next can be misleading. Comparing December 2023 to December 2022, however, gives you an accurate reading of your growth because you're comparing two similar shopping seasons.
It highlights long-term trends. An upward YoY trend shows sustained growth, whereas a dip might signal a market shift or a new challenge you need to address. It's the most reliable way to gauge your business's health over time.
It provides clear context for stakeholders. Saying "sales were up 100% since last month" sounds impressive, but it’s less meaningful if last month was your slowest of the year. Saying "sales grew 15% YoY" provides a much stronger, more credible benchmark of performance.
First, Let's Calculate YoY Growth in Excel
Before you can build a chart, you need to calculate your YoY growth percentages. The process is straightforward. Let's assume you have monthly sales data for the last two years.
Step 1: Set Up Your DataOrganize your data into a clear table. The simplest structure includes a column for the date, the previous year's value, and the current year's value. You can then add a fourth column for your calculation.
Here’s a sample layout:
Step 2: Use the YoY Growth FormulaThe formula for YoY growth is:
In our Excel example, with "2023 Sales" in column B and "2024 Sales" in column C, the formula for January (row 2) would be:
Type this formula into cell D2 and press Enter.
Step 3: Apply the Formula and Format as PercentageClick on cell D2, grab the small square at the bottom-right corner (the fill handle), and drag it down to apply the formula to all months.
Your calculated growth will appear as a decimal. To make it readable, select the entire "YoY Growth" column, go to the Home tab, and click the percent sign (%) in the Number group to format the cells as a percentage.
With your data prepped, you’re ready to start visualizing!
Method 1: The Essential Combination Chart
A combination chart (or combo chart) is the most powerful and comprehensive way to show YoY growth because it visualizes both the absolute sales numbers and the percentage growth rate on the same chart. It tells the complete story by providing scale and context.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Select Your Data: Highlight your entire data set, including the headers (from A1 to D13 in our example).
Insert Combo Chart: Go to the Insert tab, click on the "Insert Combo Chart" icon, and select Clustered Column - Line on Secondary Axis.
Excel will try to guess your chart setup. You'll likely see both years' sales as columns and the growth rate as a line, but they will all share the same primary vertical axis, which makes the growth line look flat and unreadable.
Step 3: Configure the Chart Axes
This is the most important step. You need to assign the YoY Growth percentage to a separate axis so its scale doesn't get flattened by the much larger sales numbers.
Right-click anywhere on the chart and choose Change Chart Type.
In the dialog box, you'll see a list of your data series ("2023 Sales," "2024 Sales," "YoY Growth").
Make sure "2023 Sales" and "2024 Sales" are set to Clustered Column and the checkbox for Secondary Axis is unchecked for both.
Change the chart type for "YoY Growth" to Line with Markers.
Most importantly, check the Secondary Axis box for the "YoY Growth" series.
Click OK.
Your chart will now cleanly display sales columns referenced against the primary vertical axis (on the left) and the growth percentage line referenced against the secondary vertical axis (on the right). Add a clear title, like "Monthly Sales Performance: 2024 vs. 2023," and label your axes for clarity.
Method 2: Bar Chart with Growth Rate Data Labels
If your primary goal is to emphasize the current year's performance while still providing the YoY context, a simple column chart with custom data labels is a great option. It’s clean, direct, and very easy for any audience to understand at a glance.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Select Only Current Year Data: Highlight just the months and the current year's sales (columns A and C in our example).
Insert a Column Chart: Go to the Insert tab and choose a simple 2-D Clustered Column Chart. You’ll now have a basic bar chart showing just 2024’s sales.
Add Data Labels: Right-click on one of the columns in your chart and select Add Data Labels. By default, this will add the monthly sales figures above each bar.
Customize the Data Labels: Now, we'll replace the sales figures with our YoY growth percentages.
Right-click on any of the new data labels and choose Format Data Labels....
In the Format Data Labels pane that appears on the right, under "Label Options," check the box for Value From Cells.
A small window will prompt you to "Select Data Label Range." Use your mouse to select the YoY Growth percentage column you calculated earlier (D2 to D13). Click OK.
Finally, uncheck the default "Value" box and leave only "Value From Cells" checked. You can also adjust the position of the label (e.g., "Outside End") for readability.
This chart clearly shows the current year's performance, while the labels instantly tell the viewer how that performance compares to the previous year. It's a fantastic choice for dashboards and presentations where simplicity is key.
Method 3: Bar Chart to Compare Growth Across Categories
Sometimes you need to compare YoY growth not over time, but across different categories — like products, marketing channels, or sales regions. A horizontal bar chart is perfect for this, as it makes it easy to quickly identify top and bottom performers.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Set Up Your Data: Create a simple table with your categories in one column and their calculated YoY growth rates in the next.
Sort Your Data: Here's a pro-tip. Before creating the chart, sort your data by the YoY growth percentage from largest to smallest. This makes your final chart much more insightful because it's already ranked.
Select Your Data and Insert Chart: Highlight your categories and their growth rates. Go to the Insert tab and choose a 2-D Bar Chart.
Format for Clarity: Add data labels to the bars to show the exact percentages. You can also set charts to conditionally format negative values to automatically appear in red. Simply double-click on an axis to open the Format Axis pane, find the “Number” section, and check the “Linked to source” box after setting a custom number format with red color for negatives in your spreadsheet (e.g., 0%,[Red]-0%).
This chart makes it incredibly easy to see that "Product C" is your growth leader, while "Product D" is lagging behind and might need attention. It's perfect for strategic review meetings and performance analysis.
Final Thoughts
Visualizing YoY growth in Excel moves you from simply having data to telling a meaningful story about your business performance. Choosing the right chart - a combo chart for comprehensive context, a labeled bar chart for simplicity, or a category comparison for strategic focus - is key to getting your message across clearly.
While Excel is endlessly flexible, the weekly routine of exporting new data, checking formulas, and reformatting charts can eat up valuable hours. We built Graphed to automate this entire process. You connect your data sources once, and then you can ask for a YoY growth chart in plain English. Graphed generates a live, real-time dashboard that updates automatically, saving you from the manual work and letting you focus on making the data-driven decisions that grow your business.