SQL Sorting by Multiple Columns

A second column breaks ties left by the first — sorted within each group formed by the first column.

What & Why

List more than one column in ORDER BY, separated by commas. Rows sort by the first column, and whenever two rows tie on it, the second column breaks the tie.

See How It Works

BUSINESS QUESTION

Sort by channel, then by spend (highest first) within each channel.

id	name	channel	spend	start_date	end_date	status	target_segment
1	Spring Launch	google_ads	55000.00	2024-01-15	2024-03-31	active	smb
2	Retention Webinar	email	45000.00	2024-02-10	2024-04-15	active	enterprise
3	Finance Retargeting	linkedin	50000.00	2024-03-12	2024-05-31	active	enterprise
4	Enterprise Search	google_ads	60000.00	2024-04-01	2024-06-30	active	enterprise

Watch the rows sort into placeStep 1 of 3

ORDER BY channel ASC, spend DESC

-- unsorted, arrival order

position	name	channel	spend
1	Spring Launch	google_ads	55,000
2	Retention Webinar	email	45,000
3	Finance Retargeting	linkedin	50,000
4	Enterprise Search	google_ads	60,000

Before ORDER BY, the rows remain in their incoming order.

EXAMPLE QUERY

SELECT name, channel, spend FROM marketing.campaigns
ORDER BY channel ASC, spend DESC;

Now You Try

Practice this concept

Marketing wants leads sorted by highest score, then newest creation time, with id as the final tie-breaker.

Available schema

marketing

Prefix tables with marketing.table_name.

idsourcecountrylead_scorecreated_at

marketing.leads

Column	Type
id	integer
campaign_id	integer
email	text
created_at	timestamp with time zone
qualified_at	timestamp with time zone
converted_at	timestamp with time zone
lead_score	integer
source	text
country	text
archive_status	text

query.sql

Beginner business practice