A funnel chart is a visualization that shows how a quantity shrinks across the sequential steps of a process, making drop-off between stages easy to spot. Each stage is drawn as a segment whose width reflects how many items remain, so the chart narrows as people (or orders, or leads) fall out along the way — hence the funnel shape.
When to use a funnel chart
Funnels fit any process where items pass through ordered stages and can only move forward or leave:
- Checkout flows. Visited the product page, added to cart, started checkout, entered payment, completed the order.
- Sign-up and activation. Landed on the site, created an account, finished onboarding, performed the key action.
- Sales pipelines. Lead, qualified, demo, proposal, closed-won.
The value of the chart is in the steps between the stages. Total conversion from top to bottom is a single number you could put on a KPI card; the funnel shows which specific transition is leaking. If 80% of visitors who start checkout abandon at the payment step, that’s where the fix goes — and that’s the bar-to-bar drop the funnel makes obvious.
When not to use one
Funnel charts assume a strict, ordered sequence. If your stages aren’t really sequential — users can skip steps, loop back, or take different paths — the funnel flattens that complexity into a false story. Branching or multi-path flows are better served by a sankey diagram, which shows where items actually go rather than assuming one route.
A funnel is also the wrong choice for comparing unrelated categories. Sales by region isn’t a funnel just because the numbers happen to descend; a bar chart or row chart is the right tool there. And be careful with funnels built from different populations at each stage (say, mixing this month’s visitors with last month’s sign-ups) — the stages need to describe the same cohort moving through the same process, or the drop-off percentages are fiction.
Funnel charts in Metabase
Metabase has a native funnel chart type. Feed it a question that returns each step and its count — one row per stage, in order — and Metabase renders the funnel with the count and the percentage of the first step retained at each stage. You can reorder steps in the visualization settings if your query doesn’t return them in funnel order.
Funnels support drill-through, and they work well on a dashboard alongside the metrics they explain: a conversion-rate KPI up top, the funnel below it showing where the rate is won and lost, and dashboard filters to slice both by channel, device, or date range. See the funnel docs for setup details.
Related terms
Further reading
Put it to work
- Ecommerce conversion funnel dashboard — Dashboard
- Marketing funnel dashboard — Dashboard
- Conversion rate — Metric
- Marketing analytics — Overview
