BCG Matrix Generator
Add your products or business units, set market share and growth rate, and watch them plot as bubbles on the BCG Matrix. Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks and Dogs, identified instantly. Pro Mode adds colour themes, a full HD export preview and strategy tips.
How to Use the BCG Matrix Generator
From a blank portfolio to a downloadable growth-share matrix. No signup, saved only in your browser.
Everything above runs entirely in your browser. Your analysis is never uploaded to a server, so it stays completely private from start to finish.
BCG Matrix Generator, Free and Online
A BCG Matrix generator plots your products or business units as bubbles by market share and growth rate, instantly classifying each as a Star, Cash Cow, Question Mark or Dog. This one is fully editable in the browser, includes ready-made industry templates, and runs entirely on your device.
Deciding where to invest, hold, or cut a product from a portfolio gets far clearer once you can actually see it plotted against every other product, which is exactly what makes the BCG Matrix such a durable tool more than 50 years after it was introduced. This BCG Matrix generator online tool lets you add products as bubbles, set their market share and growth rate with sliders, size each bubble to reflect revenue or importance, load a starter template for a tech giant, FMCG portfolio, media company, retail group, pharma portfolio or auto manufacturer, and watch the live preview classify every bubble as it updates. Export the result as a high quality PNG. Pro Mode adds 6 colour themes, a full HD export preview, a quadrant legend, a print-ready view, and contextual strategy tips based on how your portfolio is actually distributed.
1Simple vs Pro, What Each Mode Includes
| Feature | Simple Mode | Pro Mode (Free) |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited products, live bubble plot preview | Included | Included |
| Market share, growth rate and bubble size sliders | Included | Included |
| 6 industry starter templates | Included | Included |
| Export as PNG or copy as plain text | Included | Included |
| 6 colour themes, including monochrome | Not included | Included |
| Full HD export preview with quadrant legend | Not included | Included |
| Print-ready / PDF view | Not included | Included |
| Contextual strategy tips based on your portfolio | Not included | Included |
2What Each Quadrant Actually Means
A worked BCG Matrix example makes the four categories far easier to apply than the definitions alone. For a technology company, a flagship product with an established customer base and steady but modest growth typically sits as a Cash Cow, generating the reliable profit that funds investment elsewhere. A rapidly growing new product line that is still gaining market share might sit as a Star, or as a Question Mark if its share is still low relative to competitors. A legacy product with shrinking demand and a small market share usually sits as a Dog, a common candidate for retirement or divestment. According to the BCG Matrix, stars are the products worth continued heavy investment precisely because they combine strong current performance with real growth headroom.
3Where the BCG Matrix Actually Came From
The framework was developed collaboratively at the Boston Consulting Group in the late 1960s. According to BCG's own account of its history, the firm's Alan Zakon, who later became BCG's CEO, first sketched the concept and refined it together with colleagues, before BCG founder Bruce Henderson popularized it publicly in his 1970 essay "The Product Portfolio." At its peak the matrix was used by roughly half of all Fortune 500 companies, and it remains a staple of business school strategy teaching today, more than five decades after it was introduced.
| Question | Quick Answer |
|---|---|
| What does the BCG Matrix evaluate? | A product's relative market share against the growth rate of its market |
| Where should reinvested cash come from? | Cash Cows, since they generate profit with little further investment needed |
| What should happen to Dogs? | Usually divested or repositioned, since they consume cash without strategic return |
| What pairs well with a BCG Matrix? | A SWOT analysis, since Stars and Cash Cows often reflect genuine strengths |
Everything, including Pro Mode's colour themes, full HD export preview and strategy tips, runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your analysis is saved only in local storage on your own device, and is never sent to a server.
4Frequently Asked Questions
Grounded in the Boston Consulting Group's own documented history of the framework, not a secondhand summary. The Alan Zakon and Bruce Henderson origin story is detailed on BCG's official history page. For related strategy and diagram tools on the rest of this site, see the SWOT Analysis Generator and the full SmallStudyTools.com tool library.
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