Stacked Area Chart
A total, and what it is made of, moving together. A stacked area chart layers several series on top of one another so each band is a part and the outer edge is the whole. It answers two questions at once: how big is the total, and how is its mix changing.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Healthy | 520 | 528 | 533 | 539 | 542 | 545 | 548 | 549 | 551 | 550 | 542 | 541 |
| Watch | 180 | 186 | 193 | 199 | 208 | 215 | 224 | 233 | 241 | 252 | 266 | 274 |
| At risk | 95 | 99 | 104 | 110 | 117 | 124 | 133 | 141 | 150 | 161 | 174 | 186 |
| Critical | 38 | 40 | 42 | 45 | 48 | 52 | 56 | 61 | 66 | 72 | 79 | 86 |
The customer base grew 18% over the year while the healthy band grew only 4%; nearly all net growth landed in the watch and at-risk bands.
Treat this as an onboarding-quality problem rather than a churn problem - new customers are arriving unhealthy.
What is a stacked area chart?
A stacked area chart layers several series on top of one another so each band is a part and the outer edge is the whole. It answers two questions at once: how big is the total, and how is its mix changing.
Why is a stacked area chart useful?
Composition shifts are invisible in a total and invisible in per-series percentages. Stacking is what makes 'the base grew but the healthy share shrank' a single glance.
How RetainCLM uses it
Stack customers by health band - healthy, watch, at risk, critical. A base that grows while the critical band grows faster is a business buying revenue it is about to lose.
The chart above is drawn from illustrative demo data chosen to make the visualization legible. It does not describe real RetainCLM customers. On a live account the same chart is drawn from your own customer, usage, billing and support data.
How to read it
Only the bottom band sits on a flat baseline, so only the bottom band's thickness is easy to judge. Read the top edge as the total and each band by thickness, never by its top edge alone.
Limitations to keep in mind
Middle bands are genuinely hard to read precisely, because their baseline moves. If the exact trajectory of one middle series matters, give it its own line chart.
Related concepts
A stacked area chart is most useful alongside customer segmentation, customer retention analytics, revenue retention. RetainCLM builds these views on one unified customer record, so a pattern you notice in one visualization can be followed into the next without exporting anything.
Questions about the stacked area chart
What does a stacked area chart show?
It shows a total over time and the composition of that total simultaneously, with each series drawn as a band stacked on the ones below it.
When is a stacked area chart the wrong choice?
When you need to read exact values for a series in the middle of the stack. Those bands sit on a moving baseline, which makes precise comparison unreliable.
Related visualizations
See a stacked area chart built on your customers
Book a demo and we will build this chart, and the rest of the library, against your own retention and revenue data.
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