Stacked Bar Chart
Compare totals and their make-up side by side. A stacked bar chart splits each bar into segments, so the full bar is a total and each block is a part of it. A 100% stacked variant normalises every bar to the same height, which compares mix while discarding size.
| Startup | SMB | Mid-market | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low risk | 58 | 214 | 268 | 132 |
| Medium risk | 41 | 96 | 137 | 38 |
| High risk | 37 | 61 | 92 | 14 |
Mid-market carries the largest absolute number of high-risk customers, but the highest high-risk *share* sits in the smallest segment, startups.
Size playbooks by absolute count for mid-market and by share for startups; the same threshold means different things at different segment sizes.
What is a stacked bar chart?
A stacked bar chart splits each bar into segments, so the full bar is a total and each block is a part of it. A 100% stacked variant normalises every bar to the same height, which compares mix while discarding size.
Why is a stacked bar chart useful?
It is the compact way to ask 'is this group's composition different from that one's' across many groups at once.
How RetainCLM uses it
Break each customer segment into risk tiers. A segment whose bar is short but almost entirely red is a smaller problem than its colour suggests - and the stacked form shows both facts together.
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 segment shares a baseline across bars, so it is the only one you can compare precisely by eye. Put the series you most need to compare at the bottom.
Limitations to keep in mind
Beyond four or five segments per bar the blocks get too thin to label. And a 100% stacked chart hides size entirely - a segment of 8 customers looks as important as one of 800.
Related concepts
A stacked bar chart is most useful alongside customer segmentation, churn prediction, customer intelligence. 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 bar chart
What is a stacked bar chart used for?
Comparing both the total and the internal composition of several groups at once - for example the number of customers per segment and how that splits by risk tier.
What is the difference between a stacked and a 100% stacked bar chart?
A stacked bar keeps real totals, so bar heights differ. A 100% stacked bar scales every bar to full height, which compares mix but throws away group size.
Related visualizations
See a stacked bar 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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