11 Online Tools for Creating Infographics and Charts


tools for creating infographics

Consumers today are incredibly visual. Most would rather look at an image or chart than read an entire article or report. Luckily, there are now ways to fit just as much information into an image as there would normally be in a text article.

Infographics are visuals used to convey information. The purpose is to break down complex information and present it in a way that can be easily understood. For businesses, they can be used for marketing, client presentations and a wide range of other purposes.

Gone are the days where you need an entire graphics team to create them. If you have information to present, there are tools for creating infographics and charts that help you to visually bring it to life.

Tools for Creating Infographics and Charts

Vizzlo

This browser based application allows you to choose from more than 100 templates (the company calls them Vizzards) to create Gantt-charts, timelines, milestone plans, Venn diagrams, maps, process diagrams and other graphic displays of information.

Vizzlo offers a free option with up to 100 chart types so customers can get some idea of the way the tool works. However, to create truly professional graphics without a watermark or the company’s logo, you’ll need to spring for the premium version of the service for $14 monthly — or $11 if you pay for the entire year.

The premium version also lets you download PDFs of your finished graphics as shareable files with editing options.

Infogr.am

This free tool features more than 30 different types of charts. It’s a popular platform, with more than 800,000 infographics created so far.

You can use Infogr.am to create infographics from scratch, or you can import existing CSV or XLS files to simplify the process. The site also includes built-in sharing and embedding features so that you can make sure your graphics end up in the right place.

tools for creating infographics

Google Charts

Another free solution, Google Charts offers a gallery of ready-to-use chart types, from simple line graphs to geographical maps and timelines.

You can also generate pointers, QR codes, and other visual tools to customize images and upload them directly to your site.

Easel.ly

Currently in beta, Easel.ly features a drag-and-drop interface and a small selection of pre-designed templates. You select a design, enter your information into text boxes, and customize as necessary.

You can drag additional artwork onto the canvas, and move around or add different elements as needed. The beta version is free to use.

tools for creating infographics

InfoActive

InfoActive specializes in live data. This means that it lets you create infographics that you can continue to update and that your customers or readers can interact with. It uses a drag-and-drop method so that you can add text, charts, and filters and move them or edit them as necessary.

The tool is currently in private beta, so you can visit the site to join a waiting list.

Piktochart

This grid-based infographics tool features pre-designed themes that you can customize with text, colors, and various shapes and design elements. Pictochart offers a free version with 7 different themes, along with pro versions that have more than 100 themes and don’t include any Piktochart branding.

The company also offers customized infographics services and special pricing for enterprise, educational and charity organizations.

tools for creating infographics

Many Eyes

The IBM created tool gives you a set of pre-determined visualization options based on what type of data you have. These include pie charts, word trees, tag clouds, maps, word generators and more.

The designs are simple, but the free tool can help you sort your data or create visuals for part of a presentation or larger infographic project.

Visual.ly

Visual.ly is an online network of designers, illustrators, and other creative professionals who can help turn a pile of unorganized data into a visual representation. This service doesn’t just include a list of free, pre-designed templates. Instead it gives you access to people who can help you sort through your data and mold it into an infographic, presentation, interactive design, or video. Pricing for infographics starts at $999.

tools for creating infographics

Vennage

Vennage is a social analytics and marketing company that offers infographics and other designs as part of its service package. The tool for creating infographics allows you to upload your own images and backgrounds, or choose from a selection of customizable themes.

It offers branded infographics as part of a free plan, with a premium version available for $19 a month.

Creately

This tool specializes in allowing real-time collaboration on diagrams and other visuals. Diagrams can be interactive and can include shapes, text, and connectors. Creately offers desktop and online versions starting at $5 per month for one user.

tools for creating infographics

iCharts

With this tool, you can use Excel spreadsheets or Google Drive documents to automatically create a variety of chart types, including interactive ones. iChart also includes sharing and distribution features to help you reach a larger audience. Plans range from free to $75 per month, plus an enterprise option.

If you’d like to get started using infographics in your content, check out the Small Business Trends infographic gallery for some inspiration.

Data Photo via Shutterstock


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Amanda Stillwagon As Chief Marketer for Small Business Trends, Amanda oversees online marketing, email marketing and social media marketing for the Small Business Trends group of sites.

63 Reactions
  1. Thanks for sharing this resource. In this age where people are more visually stimulated, people need websites like these that can help them create amazing images.

    As for me, I am liking Piktochart. It creates beautiful charts that suits my taste.

  2. Pricing for infographics which starts at $999 is rather high, but then again a picture is worth a thousand words. People are more attracted to beautifully created infographics than reading long paragraphs of words.

  3. I really like infographics; they make information highly digestible. I didn’t think there were sites where you could create your own, so thanks for sharing those links. Looking forward to getting my creative on and trying my hand at a lil infographing myself :-).

    • You’re welcome Ebele. Infographics do have a way of making bland information more exciting don’t they? Happy creating!

    • You’re right. Inforgraphics makes those statistics that would otherwise bore you to death to be interesting to look at and understand. It also gives you a quick overview of a certain trend or situation.

  4. Thank you for this article, I’ve been reading that to truly engage people on your website use infographics but was unsure how to start or which was the best one to use.

  5. Tamar @ShopletPromos

    Thanks for sharing all these tools for creating charts and infographics

  6. I’ve only used InfoActive and it is really nice. Plus it allows you to update your infographic easily if needed since it works with live data. But I’m interested to try the other tools mentioned here. See what makes sense for me and will provide my data needs. 🙂

    • That’s good to hear. Wishing you lots of luck! Hope you find something that works great for your needs.

  7. Thks for the list;
    I suggest you also to check out EWC Presenter. Great tool to create infographics and presentation.

  8. Great post Amanda; a lot of great comments too.

    Representing data/knowledge etc. visually is so impactful; these look like great tools.
    There is another category as well: auto-generation based on specific data. QuestionPro users can instantly create infographics from their survey data – a great way to distribute findings, trends and more.

    I’ve heard of other examples of this sort of ‘use case-specific’ infographic generation in other niches as well.

    Thanks for the post!

    • Thanks James, glad you enjoyed the article. I’ll have to look into QuestionPro. Thanks for the suggestion!

  9. I really will have to check closer into using some of the Graphics. I could have used this list a few months ago in college but now i am using the free versions and the best of them now is Free mind, mind mapping tool. I have used Microsoft Office and for some things it works great but as soon as i needed values charts like Pert and gant charts it gets weak fast.

  10. Thanks, Amanda!

    I’m not an infographics creator, so these tools look like they can help.

    I wonder if the trend towards using infographcis will continue to be popular in 2014…

    The Franchise King®

  11. Creating infographics and offering them as free downloads is a great for getting more traffic and subscribers to my site

  12. Brilliant, thanks so much for these. Definitely going to be attempting to use these for my business in the near future. I always thought it was just graphic designers and the likes that made these which would cost too much.

    Thanks Amanda.

  13. Martin Lindeskog

    Amanda: I saw that section after I published my comment! 😉 Thanks for reminding me about it. Are you using Pinterest for collecting infographics?

  14. Thanks Amanda,
    I had no idea of Google Charts. It is a great way to easily replace Excel created sheets.
    Thanks a ton for sharing.

  15. Really Helpful list. Thanks for sharing!

  16. Thanks for sharing this great list.it helps me a lot.

  17. Here is one more online tool for easy creation of charts. The users only need to provide their data and are ready to go. There are more than 20 chart types to chose from and in addition the generated chart can be shared with just anyone with the ability the chart to be published.
    Check it out: http://reportivo.com/create

  18. if you want to add a chart (Bar-line-radar-polar area,pie) try Livegap Charts builder http://charts.livegap.com

    Easily Create Your Chart Online and save as image.(No registeration Or download)

  19. Great article with some really good resources. Another good tool to add to the collection is http://youzign.com. It’s an infographics generator that you can also use to brand your social media profiles.

  20. Thanks for sharing this excellent infographics tools list.

  21. Our company has just released Factmint Charts: http://factmint.com/charts.

    It works by progressively enhancing your HTML tables, which means that you can publish data out on to the web and visualize it for your users while leaving it visible to search engines.

    The software is really simple to use (just add a class to your HTML table, plus a link and script tag to your page), plus it’s free forever for non-commercial users. Corporate users can also get a 30-day free trial.

    Please drop by the site to have a look and let us know what you think!

  22. Would like to recommend https://vizydrop.com. Simple way to create and share charts

  23. Statpedia is super simple to use if you just want to create a chart.

  24. We personally use Visua.ly and Picktochart for making our infographics. But thanks for sharing this amazing list, now we have more options.

  25. Thats an interesting list of tools. Thank you.