How to Make a Combo Chart in Excel (Two Chart Types, One Chart)

A combo chart puts two chart types in one frame — most usefully, columns for one measure and a line for another. Revenue as columns, units sold as a line. Actuals as columns, target as a line. Monthly cost as columns, cumulative spend as a line.

Done right, it’s one of the most useful charts in business reporting, because most business questions involve two measures at once. Done wrong, it’s one of the most misleading — and Excel will happily let you do it wrong. This guide covers the build in about two minutes of clicks, then the part that matters more: which combinations actually work.

When a Combo Chart Is the Right Call

Reach for a combo chart when two related measures share the same categories — usually time periods — and you want them read together. The classic pairs:

• A quantity and a rate. Revenue (columns) and profit margin % (line).
• Actual and target. Monthly sales (columns) against a target (flat line).
• A flow and a running total. Monthly hires (columns) and cumulative headcount (line).
• Two quantities on very different scales. Revenue in millions and deal count in dozens — with a secondary axis, used carefully.

If your two measures are the same kind of thing on the same scale — this year’s sales vs. last year’s — you don’t need a combo chart. Two lines, or clustered columns, say it more honestly. Not sure which chart fits your data at all? Start with our chart decision guide.

The Build: Step by Step

Sample data — twelve months of revenue (in $K) and units sold:

Method 1: The Preset Combos (Fastest)

1. Select your data, including the header row — here, all three columns.
2. Insert tab > Charts group > Insert Combo Chart (the icon showing a column-and-line hybrid).
3. Pick one of the three presets:
   • Clustered Column – Line — both series on one axis. Use when the scales are comparable.
   • Clustered Column – Line on Secondary Axis — line gets its own right-hand axis. Use when the scales differ wildly.
   • Stacked Area – Clustered Column — almost never what you want; more on that below.

For the sample data, revenue lives in the hundreds and units in the hundreds too — close enough that Clustered Column – Line on one axis works. When one series would flatten the other into invisibility, that’s your cue for the secondary axis version — but read our guide on when a secondary axis helps and when it misleads before you default to it, because dual axes are the most abused feature in Excel charting.

Method 2: Create Custom Combo Chart (Full Control)

The presets assume the last series should be the line. When Excel guesses wrong, or you have three or more series, go custom:

1. Select the data, then Insert > Insert Combo Chart > Create Custom Combo Chart.
2. The Insert Chart dialog lists every series with two controls: a chart type dropdown and a Secondary Axis checkbox.
3. Set each series deliberately. For the sample: Revenue = Clustered Column, Units Sold = Line (or Line with Markers, which is easier to read at twelve data points).
4. Check Secondary Axis only for a series that genuinely needs its own scale.
5. The preview updates live. When it looks right, click OK.

Method 3: Convert an Existing Chart

Already built a column chart and now want one series as a line? Don’t rebuild it:

1. Right-click anywhere on the chart and choose Change Chart Type.
2. Select Combo in the left pane.
3. Assign chart types per series exactly as in Method 2, and click OK.

This is also the fix when a colleague sends you a chart with five clustered column series fighting for space — flip the reference series to a line and the chart starts breathing.

Finishing Touches

• Title the finding, not the format. “Units Grew Faster Than Revenue in H2” earns its place; “Revenue and Units Combo Chart” doesn’t.
• Make the line visually distinct — thicker weight, markers on, a color that isn’t a shade of the column color.
• If you used a secondary axis, label both axes. An unlabeled dual-axis chart is a reader comprehension test nobody signed up for.
• Delete the gridlines from one axis. Two competing gridline sets make the chart shimmer. Keep the primary set, drop the secondary.

Worked Example: The Actual-vs-Target Chart

The single most requested combo in business reporting deserves its own walkthrough. You have monthly sales and a monthly target, and you want bars that visibly clear — or miss — a line.

1. Lay out three columns: Month, Actual, Target. If the target is one annual number, fill it down all twelve rows anyway; the combo chart needs a value per category to draw the line.
2. Select all three columns and open Insert > Insert Combo Chart > Create Custom Combo Chart.
3. Set Actual to Clustered Column and Target to Line. Leave the Secondary Axis box unchecked for both — actual and target are the same measure in the same units, so a second axis would be actively wrong here.
4. Click OK, then click the target line, press Ctrl+1, and format it as a dashed line in a neutral gray. Targets are reference information; they shouldn’t shout louder than results.
5. Optional but effective: add data labels to the Actual columns only, so the reader sees each month’s number without hunting the axis.

The finished chart reads in one glance — which is why this pattern shows up in virtually every monthly business review deck, and why it’s worth building once, formatting properly, and reusing all year.

Combos That Work vs. Combos That Confuse

Here’s where we take positions, because the mechanics above will let you build anything — including charts that lie.

Combination	Verdict	Why
Columns + line (rate or %)	Works	The strongest combo there is. Quantity and rate are visually distinct, so nobody misreads which is which.
Columns + flat target line	Works	Instantly readable: bars above the line good, below the line bad.
Columns + cumulative line	Works	Pareto-style storytelling. Just make sure the cumulative series is on a secondary axis scaled to its own total.
Two lines, secondary axis	Use with care	Legitimate for genuinely different units (price vs. volume). But the axis scaling is the message — nudge either axis and you can manufacture any correlation you like. If you catch yourself adjusting axis bounds until the lines “line up,” stop: you’re no longer charting, you’re persuading.
Column + column, secondary axis	Confuses	Two column series on different axes overlap and occlude each other, and readers assume same-axis comparison. If both measures are columns, they belong on one axis or in two charts.
Stacked Area – Clustered Column	Confuses	Excel offers this as a preset, which is baffling. The area swallows the columns, the columns obscure the area, and the reader gets neither. In years of reviewing business charts we’ve yet to see a dataset this preset serves.
Three or more chart types	Confuses	A column, a line, and an area is a dashboard’s worth of information crushed into one frame. Split it.

The principle underneath the table: a combo chart should make two measures easier to read together than apart. The moment a viewer has to work out which series belongs to which axis, or which shape means what, the combo is costing comprehension rather than adding it — and two simple charts side by side would beat it.

Troubleshooting

One series vanished. It’s almost certainly plotted on the same axis as a much larger series and is now a row of near-zero specks. Open Change Chart Type and move it to the secondary axis — or rescale your data (report in $K instead of $).

The line plots in the wrong place relative to the columns. Lines plot at category midpoints; columns center on the same points. If it looks offset, you’ve probably got the line on a secondary axis whose bounds don’t match your expectation — set the secondary axis min/max manually.

New months aren’t appearing on the chart. Your chart references a fixed range. Convert the source to an Excel Table (Ctrl+T) so the chart grows with the data, and see Excel chart not updating: 7 fixes if it still won’t budge.

Excel picked the wrong series as the line. The presets always demote the last column of your selection to the line. Reorder your data columns, or skip the presets and use Create Custom Combo Chart.

The Copilot Shortcut

Copilot in Excel handles combo charts reasonably well from a plain-language prompt — “chart revenue as columns and margin as a line on a secondary axis” typically produces the right structure on the first try, which is faster than the custom dialog. What it won’t do is stop you from asking for a misleading combination, so the verdict table above still applies to you, not the AI. Full details in our Copilot charts guide.

The Verdict

Learn the Create Custom Combo Chart dialog and skip the presets — the presets guess, the dialog lets you decide, and one of the three presets shouldn’t exist at all. Default to columns-plus-line on a single axis; escalate to a secondary axis only when the scales genuinely demand it, and treat that escalation as a decision with consequences. A combo chart that needs a paragraph of explanation has failed at the only job a combo chart has.

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Related Reading

• Which Chart Should You Use? A Decision Guide by Data Type
• How to Add a Secondary Axis in Excel (and When You Should)
• Excel Chart Not Updating? 7 Fixes That Actually Work
• How to Create Charts with Copilot in Excel: The Complete Guide