What is a bubble chart?

A bubble chart - also called a bubble plot - extends a scatter plot by encoding a third numeric measure as the size of each point, drawn as a circle (bubble). The X position is one measure, the Y position is a second measure, and bubble size represents a third. Use it when you need to see the relationship between three numeric variables at once, not just two.

When should I use a bubble chart instead of a scatter plot?

Use a bubble chart when a third numeric measure adds meaningful context to the X and Y relationship - for example, revenue against cost, with bubble size showing customer count. Use a Scatter Plot when you only have two measures to compare, or when a third measure does not add useful information to the relationship being examined.

How is bubble size calculated?

Bubble size is relative, not absolute. The chart finds the minimum and maximum value of the size measure across all points, then scales every bubble between Min Size and Max Size proportionally to where its value falls in that range. The smallest value in the dataset always gets the smallest bubble, and the largest value always gets the largest bubble - bubble size is not on a fixed scale and is not comparable across different charts or different time periods unless the underlying data range is the same.

How many measures does a bubble chart need?

Exactly three. Two measures become the X and Y position; the third becomes bubble size. A bubble chart also requires exactly one dimension, used to group bubbles into separately colored series, the same role the dimension plays on a scatter plot.

What does Visual Map do?

Visual Map adds a color gradient legend tied to the size measure, so bubble color reinforces bubble size - larger values appear in a color toward one end of the gradient, smaller values toward the other. It is on by default. This makes it easier to judge relative size at a glance, especially useful when many bubbles are close in size and the visual difference in radius alone is hard to judge precisely.

Why do my bubbles all look similar in size?

Because bubble size is scaled relative to the minimum and maximum of the size measure in your current dataset, bubbles will look similar in size whenever the underlying values are close together - even if the absolute numbers seem large. Increase the gap between Min Size and Max Size in Bubble Styles to exaggerate the visual difference, or check whether the size measure genuinely has little variation across your data.

Can a bubble chart show four or more measures?

Not directly. A bubble chart encodes exactly three numeric measures - X position, Y position, and bubble size. Color can carry a fourth piece of information, but only as a grouping by category through the dimension field, or as a visual reinforcement of bubble size through Visual Map - it cannot encode a fourth independent numeric measure.

Bubble Chart | Edilitics Docs

Plot two measures against each other with a third measure encoded as bubble size, revealing relationships between three numeric variables at once.

A bubble chart - also called a bubble plot - extends a scatter plot by encoding a third numeric measure as the size of each point, drawn as a circle. Drop one categorical or date field into Column and exactly three numeric fields into Row. Use it when you need to see the relationship between three numeric variables at once - two measures plotted as position, a third encoded as size.

When to Use

A bubble chart answers the same kind of question as a Scatter Plot - the relationship between numeric measures - with one extra dimension of information. Use it when a third measure adds meaningful context to the X-Y relationship: revenue against cost, sized by customer count; ad spend against conversions, sized by impressions. If the third measure does not add insight, a scatter plot communicates the X-Y relationship more cleanly without the extra visual complexity.

Bubble size is relative to your current dataset, not an absolute scale. The chart scales the smallest value in your data to the smallest bubble and the largest value to the largest bubble - it does not use a fixed size-per-unit mapping. This means bubble sizes are not comparable across two different bubble charts, or the same chart after a filter changes the underlying data range. Never let viewers compare bubble sizes between two separate charts as if they were on the same scale.

Switch to a different chart when:

You only have two measures to compare - use Scatter Plot
One of your three fields is time and the question is about trend - use Line Chart or Combo Chart
You are comparing a single measure across categories, not three measures against each other - use Horizontal Bar
You need to see the distribution shape of a single measure - use Histogram

Scenario	Dimension	Measure 1 (X)	Measure 2 (Y)	Measure 3 (Size)
Revenue vs. cost, sized by customer count, by region	Region name	Sum of revenue	Sum of cost	Count of customers
Ad spend vs. conversions, sized by impressions, by channel	Channel name	Sum of ad spend	Count of conversions	Sum of impressions
Deal size vs. days to close, sized by deal count, by sales rep	Sales rep name	Average deal size	Average days to close	Count of deals
Page load time vs. bounce rate, sized by sessions, by device type	Device type	Average load time	Bounce rate %	Count of sessions
Headcount vs. revenue per employee, sized by total revenue, by department	Department name	Count of employees	Revenue per employee	Sum of revenue

Required Inputs

Field	Type	Count
Dimension	Categorical or Date	Exactly 1
Measure	Numeric	Exactly 3

The dimension groups bubbles into separately colored series. The first two measures become the X and Y position of each bubble; the third becomes bubble size.

For step-by-step build instructions, see Build Your First Chart.

Formatting Options

The Format tab unlocks after at least one field is assigned. Once your chart is rendering, use these controls to define how it looks and how viewers interact with it.

Style

Use the chart title to state the relationship being examined, including what the bubble size represents - viewers need all three dimensions explained before they can read the chart correctly.

Control	What it does
Show Chart Title	Shows or hides the title. The text is preserved when hidden so you can toggle it back without re-entering.
Enter Chart Title	Title text. Maximum 50 characters.
Font family	Font applied to the title.
Font size	5 to 30.
Bold / Italic	Weight and style.
Alignment	Left, center, or right within the chart container.

Bubble Styles controls how the size measure maps to visual bubble size, plus color and ripple animation.

Control	What it does
Min Size	The bubble diameter assigned to the smallest value of the size measure in your data, 1 to 30. Default is 10.
Max Size	The bubble diameter assigned to the largest value of the size measure in your data, 10 to 100. Default is 50. Increase the gap between Min Size and Max Size to make size differences more visually obvious.
Ripple Effect	Adds a pulsing ring animation around each bubble. Off by default. Use for presentation contexts; avoid on dense charts where constant rippling becomes distracting.
Ripple Scale	Size of the ripple relative to the bubble, 1.5 to 10.0. Default is 2.5. Only available when Ripple Effect is on.
Bubble Color	Single fill color for all bubbles. Only shown when the dimension produces one series (or no dimension is grouping the data).
Gradient Start Color / Gradient End Color	When the dimension splits bubbles into multiple series, each series gets a color interpolated between Start and End rather than a single fixed color.

Visual Map adds a color gradient legend tied to the size measure, reinforcing bubble size with color so relative size is easier to judge at a glance. On by default.

Control	What it does
Show Visual Map	Shows or hides the color gradient legend. On by default.
Orientation	Vertical or Horizontal layout of the legend strip.
Vertical position	Top, middle, or bottom alignment of the legend.
Horizontal position	Left, center, or right alignment of the legend.
Interactive Range	When on, viewers can drag the legend's range handles to filter which bubbles are visible based on their size value. When off, the legend is purely informational.
Low Value Color	The color assigned to the smallest size measure value.
High Value Color	The color assigned to the largest size measure value.

Low Value Color and High Value Color control the legend's gradient only - they do not change the bubble fill color itself. Bubble fill color is set independently in Bubble Styles' Gradient Start/End Color. Set both pairs to matching colors if you want the legend and the bubbles to visually align.

Data labels print a value next to each bubble. With more than a handful of bubbles, labels overlap heavily given that bubbles themselves take up more visual space than scatter plot points - use labels only on charts with a small number of bubbles.

Control	What it does
Show Data Labels	Shows or hides value labels on bubbles.
Font family	Font applied to data labels.
Font size	Maximum 18. Keep small on dense charts.
Bold / Italic / Color	Text styling.
Position	Vertical and horizontal alignment of the label relative to the bubble.
Number Type	Default, Scientific, Decimal, or Percentage.
Display Unit	None, Thousand, Million, or Billion.
Decimal Places	0 to 6. Available when Number Type is not Default.

The legend identifies which color corresponds to which category in the dimension. Critical when more than one series is plotted - without it, viewers cannot tell groups apart.

Control	What it does
Show Legends	Shows or hides the legend. On by default.
Vertical position	Top, middle, or bottom alignment of the legend block.
Horizontal position	Start, center, or end alignment.
Show Name	Default: labels always visible. On Hover: labels appear only when viewer hovers the legend.
Orientation	Vertical or Horizontal legend layout.
Item Gap	Spacing between legend items.
Font Size	Legend label font size.
Color	Legend label text color.

Axes

Both axes on a bubble chart are numeric value axes - there is no categorical axis. Name both clearly, and state what bubble size represents in the chart title since there is no dedicated axis for it.

Select X or Y before making changes. Settings apply to the selected axis only.

Control	What it does
Show Axis Name	Shows or hides the axis name label.
Axis name text	Label text. Maximum 20 characters. Defaults to the field name.
Font family	Font applied to the axis name.
Font size	5 to 30.
Bold / Italic	Weight and style.
Offset (%)	Distance between the axis name and the axis line. Increase if the axis name overlaps the axis labels.
Alignment	Start, center, or end along the axis.

Leave these at their defaults unless you are building a minimal dashboard layout.

Select X or Y before making changes.

Control	What it does
Show Axis Line	Shows or hides the axis line. Hiding it also hides ticks.
Line Color	Color of the axis line.
Line Width	Thickness of the axis line, 0 to 5.
Line Type	Solid, Dashed, or Dotted.
Show Ticks	Shows or hides tick marks on the axis line.
Tick Color	Color of the tick marks.
Tick Length	Length of the tick marks, 5 to 10.

Select X or Y before making changes. Hiding axis labels also hides the axis name.

Control	What it does
Show Axis Label	Shows or hides labels along the axis.
Font family	Font applied to axis labels.
Font size	Label font size.
Bold / Italic / Color	Text styling.
Rotation	Angle of label text.
Display Unit	Auto, None, Thousand, Million, or Billion. Available on both axes since both are numeric.

Grid lines give viewers a reference grid for reading bubble position against both numeric scales. Keep them on for both axes.

Select X or Y before making changes.

Control	What it does
Show Gridlines	Shows or hides grid lines for the selected axis.
Grid Color	Color of the grid lines.
Left / Right / Top / Bottom	Plot area margins as a percentage. Increase Left when Y-axis labels are clipped. Increase Bottom when X-axis labels overflow. Leave extra margin if Visual Map is positioned along an edge.

Interactivity

The tooltip is the only way viewers can read all three measures for a specific bubble precisely - position and size alone cannot convey exact values.

Control	What it does
Show Tooltip	Shows or hides the tooltip on hover. Keep on. The tooltip always shows the category name, X value, Y value, and size value together.
Background Color	Tooltip background color.
Headers / Values tabs	Separate styling for the label rows (Headers) and the value rows (Values). The Values tab includes Number Type, Display Unit, and Decimal Places.

Keep animation on for presentations where bubbles growing into place draws attention to the overall pattern forming. Turn it off on dashboards that auto-refresh.

Control	What it does
Enable Animation	Turns the build animation on or off.
Duration	How long the animation runs, 0 to 3000ms. Default is 1000ms.
Delay	Time before the animation starts after the chart loads, 0 to 2000ms.
Easing Function	The motion curve. Cubic Out (the default) gives a natural deceleration.

Enable Data Zoom when many bubbles overlap and viewers need to zoom into a dense region to separate them.

Control	What it does
Show Data Zoom	Shows or hides the zoom control.
Zoom Type	Slider: a draggable range bar alongside the chart. Inside: scroll-to-zoom directly on the plot area. Inside is often more useful on a bubble chart since viewers frequently want to zoom into a specific cluster.
Slider Size (px)	Width or height of the slider bar, 10 to 100. Slider type only.
Position	Position of the slider relative to the chart.
Alignment	Alignment of the slider control.
Orientation	Horizontal or Vertical, depending on which axis needs zooming.
Show Detail Label	Shows range values at the slider handles.
Background Color	Slider background.
Filler Color	Color of the selected range inside the slider.
Border Color	Slider border.
Handle Color	Color of the drag handles.
Brush Selection	Enables click-and-drag to zoom into a range.

Emphasis highlights the hovered bubble, useful for picking out one bubble from an overlapping cluster.

Control	What it does
Show Emphasis	Enables or disables the hover effect.
Focus Type	Item: highlights the hovered bubble and dims others. Series: highlights all bubbles in the hovered series (the same dimension category) and dims the rest - use this to trace one category's spread. None: no visual change on hover.
Enable Scale	Scales the hovered bubble slightly larger.
Scale Size	How much the bubble scales. Keep at 1.2 or below - bubbles already take up more space than scatter points, and a large scale value can push the bubble well outside its visual neighborhood.

Enable the Toolbox when viewers need to export the chart or inspect the exact values behind specific bubbles.

Control	What it does
Show Toolbox	Shows or hides the toolbox icon bar.
Save as Image	Adds a download icon that saves the chart as a PNG.
Data View	Adds an icon that opens the underlying data table in the chart area.

Best Practices

Always state what bubble size represents in the title. Unlike X and Y, which have labeled axes, bubble size has no axis of its own. Without an explicit statement in the title or a clearly named Visual Map legend, viewers will not know what the size encodes.

Never compare bubble sizes across two different charts. Because size is scaled relative to the min and max of the current dataset, the same underlying value can produce a different bubble size on two charts with different data ranges. If cross-chart comparison matters, consider a fixed reference point in both titles, or redesign as a table with the size value shown explicitly.

Widen the gap between Min Size and Max Size when values are close together. If your size measure has low variance, the default range can make all bubbles look nearly identical. Increasing the spread between Min Size and Max Size exaggerates the visual difference and makes the size encoding more useful.

Keep Visual Map on for size-heavy stories. Visual Map reinforces bubble size with color, which helps viewers judge relative size faster than radius alone, especially when many bubbles are close in size. Turn it off only if the color legend competes for space with other UI elements on a tight dashboard layout.

Limit the dimension to a small number of categories. Each category becomes a separate color in the legend. Beyond 5 to 6 categories, distinguishing colors becomes difficult, especially layered on top of the Visual Map color-by-size encoding which adds a second color signal to the same chart.

FAQs

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Bubble Chart