Free Pie Chart Maker — Online Tool
Create a pie chart online for free by entering labels and values, no sign-up required. This pie chart maker supports donut mode, label format toggle, and PNG download.
What Is a Pie Chart?
A pie chart shows how each category contributes to a whole by dividing a circle into proportional wedges, where the whole equals 100%. It is one of the most widely used chart types for communicating a "breakdown of a total" — the share of each expense category in a household budget, the split of responses in a survey, or the composition of sales by product category.
This tool lets you build a pie chart directly in your browser just by entering labels and numbers. It supports switching between a classic pie and a donut style, changing how labels are displayed (name, percentage, value, or combinations of these), and downloading the finished chart as a PNG image — so you can create a polished chart without opening Excel or a slide deck editor.
How to Use This Pie Chart Maker
- Enter labels and values Click "Add item" to add more rows, then type a label and the corresponding number — an amount, a count, or a ratio.
- Choose a label format Pick how each slice should be labelled on the chart, such as "Name + Percentage" or "Value only", depending on what you want to emphasise.
- Switch to donut style if needed Turn on donut mode when you want to place a title or a total figure in the empty centre of the chart.
- Save the chart as an image Click "Save as image" to download the finished chart as a PNG file, ready to paste into a document or a slide.
Tips for getting more out of it
- Pie charts are best for showing proportions of a whole. They work well for questions like "what share of the budget does each category take?" or "what percentage of sales came from each product?"
- Keep it to 5–7 slices or fewer for readability. If you have more categories, group smaller ones into an "Other" slice or consider switching to a bar chart.
- Donut style leaves a blank center where you can add a title or total figure — useful when inserting the chart into presentations.
- Click the camera icon in the top-right of the chart to download a PNG image you can paste directly into reports or slides.
- Values can be absolute or relative — dollars, units sold, or percentages all work. The chart normalises whatever you enter, so the total does not need to equal 100.
Where a Pie Chart Comes In Handy
Visualising a household budget breakdown
See at a glance how much of your total spending goes to food, housing, transport, and other categories.
Sharing survey response ratios
Turn "agree / disagree / neutral" style responses into a chart that is ready to paste straight into a report.
Preparing sales or market-share composition slides
Useful for showing sales by product category or market share as part of a sales deck or investor material.
Adding a chart to classroom or presentation materials
Since no sign-up is required, it is a quick way to drop a pie chart into a worksheet or a short presentation.
Pie Chart Glossary
- Pie chart
- A chart in which the whole is treated as 100% and each category's share is represented by the area of a circular wedge. It is well suited to showing breakdowns and compositions.
- Donut chart
- A variant of the pie chart with a hole cut out of the centre. Unlike a plain pie chart, the empty centre can be used to display a total figure or a title.
- Data-ink ratio
- A concept introduced by Edward Tufte describing the proportion of a chart's "ink" (visual elements) that actually represents data. Charts with heavy decoration and a low data-ink ratio tend to be judged as poor design.
- Legend
- The key on a chart that shows which colour corresponds to which category.
Frequently Asked Questions
Side Note — Why do experts dislike pie charts?
In data visualisation circles, pie charts are often criticised for being hard to read accurately. Humans are better at comparing lengths than areas, so two similar slices (e.g. 28% and 32%) look nearly identical in a pie chart, while the difference is immediately obvious in a bar chart.
3D pie charts are even more problematic — the perspective distortion systematically makes near slices look larger than far ones. Edward Tufte's influential 1983 book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information coined the "data-ink ratio" concept and used pie charts as an example of low-information-density design.
That said, pie charts do shine in a few scenarios: showing whether something exceeds 50% (majority rule), or communicating a rough breakdown to a non-technical audience when precision is less important than quick comprehension. The key is matching the chart type to the story you're trying to tell.