Datawrapper

About

Datawrapper

Datawrapper is a data visualisation and publishing platform founded in Berlin, Germany in 2011 by German journalist Mirko Lorenz alongside colleagues from ABZV and Journalism++. Datawrapper GmbH operates as an independent bootstrap-funded company, and the product is widely used by newsrooms including The New York Times, Bloomberg, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde. Datawrapper offers a free tier with attribution alongside paid team plans for professional editorial and business use.

Datawrapper was founded in 2011 in Berlin, Germany by journalist Mirko Lorenz alongside colleagues from ABZV, the training institute for German regional newspaper journalism, and Journalism++, a European journalism collective. The project began as a Knight-Mozilla OpenNews prototype and grew into a self-contained data-visualisation and publishing platform that quickly attracted major newsroom customers looking for a fast way to publish accurate charts without a bespoke code pipeline behind each one. Datawrapper GmbH, the German limited liability company that operates the product, has remained independently held and bootstrap-funded rather than taking venture capital, an unusual position for a growth-stage software company. Recent public representation of the team includes head-of-visualisation Lisa Charlotte Muth, whose Data Vis Dispatch and Weekly Chart columns are widely cited in the data-journalism community. The product's focus is fast, correct, publish-ready chart output rather than interactive storytelling. Users upload data as CSV or spreadsheet, pick a chart or map type, and configure formatting through a step-by-step wizard that emphasises typography, accessibility, colour contrast, and colour-blind-safe palettes. Chart types cover the standard bar, column, line, area, scatter, and dot plots alongside a strong locator-map and choropleth product used by geographic newsrooms, custom range plots, election result panels, and animated diverging bar charts. Every chart embeds through responsive iframes or exports as PNG, PDF, or SVG for print, and paid plans add live-data connections through Google Sheets or arbitrary CSV URLs, an HTTP API for chart creation, and brand-kit controls for shared typography and colour palettes. Datawrapper is distributed through datawrapper.de with a free tier that carries a Datawrapper credit line below each chart, a paid Custom tier starting around twenty-one dollars per user per month, and Enterprise plans priced by scope. Community channels include the Datawrapper Blog, the Weekly Chart series, an active Twitter presence, YouTube tutorials, and a public support academy. Public users include The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and dozens of regional dailies.