Metric4PM

Metric Glossary

A definitive handbook of product metrics. Understand the math, the meaning, and the common pitfalls before you optimize.

ELI5 Mode

DAU

growth

Daily Active Users

The number of unique users who engage with your product within a 24-hour window.
Formula
Count(Unique Users with > 0 Sessions in 24h)
Things to Watch
  • Avoid vanity: Define "Active" strictly. Viewing a page might not be enough; performing a core action is better.
  • Fluctuations: DAU can be volatile on weekends vs weekdays.

MAU

growth

Monthly Active Users

The number of unique users who engage with your product within a 30-day window.
Formula
Count(Unique Users with > 0 Sessions in 30 days)
Things to Watch
  • Lagging indicator: A drop in MAU is often noticed too late.
  • Good for high-level health checks, but less actionable than DAU or WAU.

WAU

growth

Weekly Active Users

The number of unique users who engage with your product within a 7-day window.
Formula
Count(Unique Users with > 0 Sessions in 7 days)
Things to Watch
  • Ideal for B2B products where usage is consistently weekly but not necessarily daily.
  • Less volatile than DAU, more actionable than MAU.

Active Hosts

growth

Active Hosts (Marketplace)

Supply-side users who are actively providing services (hosting meetings, listing homes, etc.).
Formula
Count(Hosts with > 0 Active Listings or Sessions)
Things to Watch
  • Supply constraints: In marketplaces, supply is often the constraint. Tracking active hosts is as critical as active buyers.
  • Quality over Quantity: 10 active super-hosts are better than 100 inactive ones.

New Host Signups / Signups

growth

New User Signups

The number of new users registering an account for the first time.
Formula
Count(Users Registering Account)
Things to Watch
  • Top of Funnel: High signups with low activation is a sign of poor targeting or onboarding, not success.
  • Spam Risk: Be aware of bot signups inflating this number.

Activation Rate

growth

User Activation Rate

The percentage of new users who hit a specific milestone (the "Aha! moment") within a defined period.
Formula
(Users who performed Activation Event / Total New Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Critical metric: Signups without activation is a leaky bucket.
  • Time-bound: Always define a window (e.g. Activated within 7 days).

Subscriber Base

growth

Total Subscribers

The total count of users with an active subscription.
Formula
Count(Users with status = "active")
Things to Watch
  • Paused vs Churned: Decide how to handle paused subscriptions. They are not active, but not fully churned.
  • Tier Mix: Track the breakdown of Basic vs Premium subscribers.

Organic Traffic

growth

Organic User Traffic

Visits to your site/app that come from unpaid search results.
Formula
Count(Sessions where Source = Organic Search)
Things to Watch
  • SEO Health: Primary indicator of SEO performance.
  • Brand Strength: High direct/organic traffic often signals strong brand recall.

Viral Coefficient (K-factor)

growth

Viral Coefficient

The number of new users each existing user successfully converts.
Formula
Avg # of Invitations sent * Conversion rate of Invitations
Things to Watch
  • K > 1: Exponential growth (Viral).
  • K < 1: Linear or decaying growth (Paid/Organic dependent).

CPI

growth

Cost Per Install

The price paid by the advertiser to acquire a new user installation of a mobile application.
Formula
Total Ad Spend / Total Installs
Things to Watch
  • Platform Variance: CPI on iOS is typically higher than Android.
  • Fraud: Watch out for install farms inflating numbers.

PMF

general

Product-Market Fit

The degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand.
Formula
Qualitative (Sean Ellis Test: >40% would be "very disappointed" without it)
Things to Watch
  • Sustainable growth: PMF is the precursor to scaling. Don't pour fuel on a product without PMF.
  • Retention as proxy: High long-term retention is the best quantitative indicator of PMF.

Aha! Moment

growth

Aha! Moment

The specific moment when a user first realizes the value of your product.
Formula
User performs [Action] + [Frequency] within [Time Period]
Things to Watch
  • Facebook: 7 friends in 10 days.
  • Slack: 2,000 messages sent within a team.
  • Dropbox: 1 file in 1 folder on 1 device.

Referral Rate

growth

Referral Rate

The percentage of existing customers who refer new customers.
Formula
(Number of Referrals / Total Customers) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Advocacy: High referral rate indicates strong product love.
  • Incentives: Track organic vs incentivized referrals separately.

PQL

growth

Product Qualified Leads

A lead who has experienced meaningful value using your product (e.g. valid trial user).
Formula
Users hitting Activation criteria
Things to Watch
  • Sales alignment: PQLs convert much higher than MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads).
  • Usage based: Defined by actual product usage, not just demographic fit.

ARR

revenue

Annual Recurring Revenue

The value of the recurring subscription revenue of a company normalized to a single calendar year.
Formula
Sum(Annual Subscription Value of all active customers)
Things to Watch
  • Don't include one-time fees (consulting, setup).
  • Committed vs Contracted: Use committed revenue for accurate forecasting.

GMV

revenue

Gross Merchandise Value

The total value of merchandise sold over a given period of time through a customer-to-customer (C2C) exchange site or e-commerce platform.
Formula
Sales Price * Number of Items Sold
Things to Watch
  • Revenue is separate: GMV is not your revenue; it is the throughput. Revenue is GMV * Take Rate.
  • Returns: Gross GMV usually includes returns; Net GMV excludes them.

GMS

revenue

Gross Merchandise Sales

The total value of all sales made on a marketplace platform (e.g. Etsy).
Formula
Sum(Sales Volume)
Things to Watch
  • Marketplace Context: Often used interchangeably with GMV but specifically refers to the sales volume processed.
  • Net GMS: Sales after cancellations and returns.

Take Rate

revenue

Take Rate / Commision Rate

The percentage of GMV or GMS that a marketplace collects as revenue.
Formula
(Revenue / GMV) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Marketplace Health: High take rate could drive sellers away; low take rate might make the business unsustainable.
  • Components: Often includes commission + payment fees + advertising revenue.

TPV

revenue

Total Payment Volume

The total value of transactions processed through a payments platform.
Formula
Sum(Value of all processed transactions)
Things to Watch
  • Metric for Fintech: Similar to GMV for e-commerce. Indicates scale/throughput.
  • Currency fluctuations: Be careful when aggregating TPV across multiple currencies.

AOV

revenue

Average Order Value

The average amount spent each time a customer places an order.
Formula
Total Revenue / Total Number of Orders
Things to Watch
  • Pricing Strategy: Increasing AOV is often easier than getting new customers (bundling, upsells).
  • Beware of outlines: One whale buyer can skew the average. Check the median too.

ARPU

revenue

Average Revenue Per User

The average revenue generated per active individual user.
Formula
Total Revenue / Total Active Users
Things to Watch
  • Segementation key: ARPU varies wildly by cohort (e.g. Free vs Pro). Always segment.
  • Vanity warning: High ARPU with shrinking user base is a warning sign of a niche product.

LTV

revenue

Lifetime Value

The predicted net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.
Formula
(ARPU * Gross Margin %) / Churn Rate
Things to Watch
  • Prediction hazard: LTV is a forecast, not a fact. Be conservative with churn assumptions.
  • LTV:CAC Ratio: Ideally 3:1. If 1:1, you are bleeding money. If 5:1, you are under-investing in growth.

CAC

revenue

Customer Acquisition Cost

The cost associated with convincing a customer to buy a product/service.
Formula
(Sales + Marketing Expenses) / Number of New Customers Acquired
Things to Watch
  • Blended vs Paid: Blended CAC hides the inefficiency of paid channels. Always calculate Paid CAC separately.
  • Time lag: Marketing spend today might not produce users for months (in B2B).

LTV:CAC

revenue

LTV to CAC Ratio

A metric comparing the lifetime value of a customer to the cost of acquiring them.
Formula
LTV / CAC
Things to Watch
  • Benchmark: 3:1 is the gold standard for SaaS.
  • Efficiency: If > 5:1, you are likely under-spending on growth.

CLV

revenue

Customer Lifetime Value

Total revenue a customer generates during their entire relationship with the company.
Formula
Avg Order Value * Purchase Frequency * Customer Lifespan
Things to Watch
  • CLV vs LTV: LTV often refers to Gross Margin contributed, while CLV can refer to pure revenue.
  • Cohort tracking: Track CLV by signup month to see if customer quality is improving.

CAC Payback Period

revenue

CAC Payback Period

The time it takes to earn back the cost of acquiring a customer.
Formula
CAC / (ARPU * Gross Margin %)
Things to Watch
  • Cash efficiency: For startups, < 12 months is the goal. > 18 months creates cash flow drag.
  • Segment: SMB payback should be faster (6-9mo) than Enterprise (12-18mo).

Gross Margin

revenue

Gross Margin

The percentage of revenue left after subtracting the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).
Formula
((Revenue - COGS) / Revenue) * 100
Things to Watch
  • SaaS scalability: High gross margins (80%+) explain why software companies are valued highly.
  • COGS: Includes hosting, support, and payment fees, but not R&D.

EBITDA

revenue

EBITDA

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. A proxy for operating cash flow.
Formula
Net Income + Interest + Taxes + Depreciation + Amortization
Things to Watch
  • Valuation: Common valuation metric for mature companies.
  • Rule of 40: Growth Rate + EBITDA Margin should be > 40%.

Win Rate

revenue

Sales Opportunity Win Rate

The percentage of sales opportunities that convert into closed deals.
Formula
(Closed Won Deals / Total Opportunities) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Pipeline Quality: Low win rate usually means poor lead qualification, not just bad sales skills.
  • Stage analysis: Track conversion rate per stage to find the bottleneck.

Pipeline Value

revenue

Sales Pipeline Value

The total estimated value of all open sales opportunities.
Formula
Sum(Opportunity Value * Probability to Close)
Things to Watch
  • Forecast accuracy: Weighted pipeline is only as good as the probability estimates.
  • Stale deals: Remove deals that have been "open" too long to keep pipeline realistic.

New Business Revenue

revenue

Revenue from New Customers

Revenue generated strictly from new logos acquired in the period.
Formula
Sum(Revenue from Customers with StartDate in Period)
Things to Watch
  • Hunter vs Farmer: Measures the effectiveness of your sales "hunters".
  • Discounting impacts: Watch out for high new biz rev driven by unsustainable discounts.

Expansion Revenue

revenue

Expansion Revenue

Additional revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or add-ons.
Formula
Sum(Upsell + Cross-sell Revenue)
Things to Watch
  • Cheaper growth: Expanding existing customers is 5-25x cheaper than acquiring new ones.
  • Net Retention driver: This is the fuel for NDR > 100%.

Burn Rate

revenue

Net Burn Rate

The rate at which a company uses its cash reserves to cover operating expenses.
Formula
Cash Spent - Cash Revenue (per month)
Things to Watch
  • Runway calculator: Cash Balance / Burn Rate = Months of Runway.
  • Efficiency: High burn is acceptable only if growth is efficiently high (Magic Number > 1).

Runway

revenue

Cash Runway

The amount of time a company has before it runs out of cash.
Formula
Current Cash Balance / Monthly Net Burn Rate
Things to Watch
  • Survival metric: 18-24 months is standard for venture-backed startups.
  • Fundraising trigger: Usually need to start raising when runway < 6-9 months.

Magic Number

revenue

SaaS Magic Number

A measure of sales and marketing efficiency.
Formula
(Current Q Revenue - Previous Q Revenue) * 4 / Previous Q Sales & Marketing Spend
Things to Watch
  • > 1.0: Efficient growth. Pour more fuel on the fire.
  • < 0.7: Inefficient. Fix the funnel before spending more.

MRR

revenue

Monthly Recurring Revenue

The predictable total revenue generated by your business from all active subscriptions in a particular month.
Formula
Sum(Monthly Subscription Fees)
Things to Watch
  • Momentum: The most important metric for SaaS growth.
  • Commitment: Includes recurring charges, excludes one-time fees.

Net Revenue Churn

revenue

Net Revenue Churn

The percentage of revenue lost from existing customers, accounting for expansion revenue.
Formula
((Revenue Lost from Churn - Expansion Revenue) / Starting Revenue) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Negative Churn: If Expansion > Churn, you have Negative Net Churn (the holy grail).
  • Sustainability: High net churn kills growth.

Quick Ratio

revenue

SaaS Quick Ratio

Checks if a company is growing revenue efficiently despite churn.
Formula
(New MRR + Expansion MRR) / (lost MRR + Contraction MRR)
Things to Watch
  • > 4: Excellent growth efficiency.
  • < 2: You are burning cash just to replace lost customers.

Rule of 40

revenue

Rule of 40

A principle that states a SaaS company's combined growth rate and profit margin should exceed 40%.
Formula
Annual Revenue Growth Rate % + EBITDA Margin %
Things to Watch
  • Trade-off: You can be unprofitable (-10%) if you are growing fast (50%).
  • Balance: High growth permits lower margins, and vice versa.

Burn Multiple

revenue

Burn Multiple

How much cash you are burning to generate each incremental dollar of ARR.
Formula
Net Burn / Net New ARR
Things to Watch
  • < 1.0: Amazing efficiency.
  • > 3.0: Warning sign, spending too much for too little growth.

Churn Rate

retention

Customer Churn Rate

The percentage of customers who stop using your product during a given time frame.
Formula
(Lost Customers / Total Customers at Start of Period) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Silent killer: Low churn is often more important than high growth for sustainability.
  • Revenue Churn vs Logo Churn: You can lose customers but grow revenue (negative churn) if upsells are strong.

NDR / NRR

retention

Net Dollar Retention

How much revenue you retain and expand from existing customers (after churn and downsells).
Formula
((Review Start Rev + Expansion - Churn - Contraction) / Start Rev) * 100
Things to Watch
  • >100% is the holy grail: It means you grow even if you acquire zero new customers.
  • Cohort analysis: Analyze NDR by cohort to see if older cohorts expand or shrink over time.

Repeat Purchase Rate

retention

Repeat Customer Rate

The percentage of customers who have made more than one purchase.
Formula
(Customers with > 1 Order / Total Unique Customers) * 100
Things to Watch
  • E-commerce vital sign: Breaking even on first purchase is rare; profit comes from repeats.
  • Window matters: Define the window carefully (e.g. repeat within 90 days).

Stickiness

retention

Stickiness Ratio (DAU/MAU)

The ratio of daily active users to monthly active users, measuring how addictive a product is.
Formula
(DAU / MAU) * 100
Things to Watch
  • World class: > 20% is good; > 50% is Facebook level.
  • Utility drift: Only relevant for daily-use products.

Sessions per User

engagement

Average Frequency of Use

How often users open and engage with the app.
Formula
Total Sessions / Total Active Users
Things to Watch
  • Habit Strength: High frequency often indicates strong habit formation.
  • Natural Frequency: Don't expect daily use for a monthly utility app (e.g. Payroll).

Time Spent

engagement

Average Time Spent per User

The duration a user spends actively using the product.
Formula
Total Session Duration / Total Active Users
Things to Watch
  • Quality vs Quantity: Time spent is good for media (Netflix), but bad for utility (Uber).
  • Active vs Idle: Ensure you are tracking active foreground time.

Content Consumption

engagement

Content Consumption

Metric tracking how much content users view, watch, or read (e.g. Minutes Watched, Articles Read).
Formula
Sum(Content Units Consumed)
Things to Watch
  • Feed Health: Critical for media/social apps.
  • Completion Rate: Watching 5% of a video counts as a view, but completion is a better signal of quality.

Content Engagement

engagement

Engagement with Content

Interactions with content beyond passive consumption (e.g. Likes, Shares, Comments).
Formula
Sum(Likes + Comments + Shares)
Things to Watch
  • Algorithm signal: These are high-value signals for recommendation algorithms.
  • Share > Like: A share is usually a much stronger endorsement than a like.

Content Creation / Files Created

engagement

User Generated Content Volume

The volume of core assets created by users (e.g., Files in Figma, Boards in Pinterest, Repos in GitHub).
Formula
Count(New Core Entities Created)
Things to Watch
  • Prosumer Activity: Creation is often the first step to collaboration/sharing.
  • Empty states: Watch out for "Created but empty" files.

Messages Sent

engagement

Communication Volume

Total number of messages exchanged, indicating communication activity.
Formula
Count(Messages Successfully Sent)
Things to Watch
  • Network Density: More messages usually means a denser, stickier network.
  • Bot traffic: Exclude automated system messages.

Project Activity

engagement

Project Management Activity

The level of active engagement within project management tools (e.g. Tasks moved, tickets updated).
Formula
Count(Task Updates + Comments + Transitions)
Things to Watch
  • Work vs Noise: Are users just moving cards around, or actually closing them?
  • Collaboration proxy: High activity implies the team is living in the tool.

Meeting Volume

engagement

Meeting Activity

The number or duration of meetings hosted on the platform.
Formula
Count(Meetings with > 1 participant)
Things to Watch
  • Cost metric: For internal tools, high meeting volume might be bad (inefficiency).
  • Value metric: For Zoom/Teams, this is the core value unit.

Bounce Rate

engagement

Website Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
Formula
(Single Page Sessions / Total Sessions) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Content relevance: High bounce rate often means the landing page didn't match the ad promise.
  • Exceptions: Single-page apps (SPAs) or simple informational queries might have naturally high bounce rates.

Cart Abandonment

engagement

Cart Abandonment Rate

The percentage of shoppers who add items to their cart but leave without completing the purchase.
Formula
((Initiated Carts - Completed Transactions) / Initiated Carts) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Friction point: Often caused by surprise costs (shipping, tax) at checkout.
  • Retargeting: Primary trigger for abandoned cart emails.

NPS

general

Net Promoter Score

A sentiment metric that measures customer loyalty.
Formula
% Promoters (9-10) - % Detractors (0-6)
Things to Watch
  • Sentiment vs Reality: Users may say they love you (high NPS) but still churn.
  • Use strictly as a pulse check, not a root cause diagnostic tool.

Conversion Rate

general

Funnel Conversion Rate

The percentage of users who move from one stage of a funnel to the next (e.g., Visitor -> Signup, or Signup -> Paid).
Formula
(Users entering Stage B / Users entering Stage A) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Micro-conversions: Don't just track the final sale; track each step to find the friction.
  • Local maxima: optimizing one step (e.g. clicks) might hut the next down stream retention.

Resolution Time

general

Average Resolution Time

The average time taken to resolve an issue or complete a task (e.g., Jira issue, Customer support ticket).
Formula
Average(Resolved Date - Created Date)
Things to Watch
  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Long resolution times kill CSAT.
  • SLA Breaches: Track % of tickets resolved within SLA, not just average.

Cycle Time

general

Development Cycle Time

The time elapsed between starting work on a task and finishing it.
Formula
Average(Completion Timestamp - Start Timestamp)
Things to Watch
  • Flow efficiency: High cycle time often indicates blocking dependencies or context switching.
  • Predictability: Stable cycle time is better than fast but erratic cycle time.

User Efficiency

general

User Workflow Efficiency

Metrics indicating how quickly users get value (e.g. Time to Task Completion).
Formula
Average(Time to Complete Core Action)
Things to Watch
  • Friction hunting: Use this to identify UX hurdles.
  • Learning curve: Efficiency should improve as user tenure increases.

Supply Liquidity

general

Marketplace Supply Liquidity

The percentage of listings or service providers that are available and result in a transaction.
Formula
(Transactions / Active Listings) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Marketplace Health: High liquidity means buyers always find what they want.
  • Cold start: Hardest metric to move in a new marketplace.

SUS

general

System Usability Scale

A standardized 10-item questionnaire used to assess the usability of a system.
Formula
Survey Score (0-100)
Things to Watch
  • Industry standard: Score > 68 is considered above average.
  • Quick pulse: "I thought the system was easy to use."

CES

general

Customer Effort Score

Measures how much effort a customer had to exert to get an issue resolved or a request fulfilled.
Formula
Survey: "How easy was it to handle your issue?"
Things to Watch
  • Loyalty predictor: High effort correlates strongly with churn.
  • Frictionless: The goal is to make interactions effortless.

Task Success Rate

general

Task Success Rate

The percentage of users who can successfully complete a specific task.
Formula
(Successful Completions / Total Attempts) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Usability validation: If users can't finish the task, the design failed.
  • Severity: Distinguish between "gave up" vs "completed with errors".

Time on Task

general

Time on Task

The time required for a user to complete a specific task successfully.
Formula
End Time - Start Time
Things to Watch
  • Efficiency: Generally lower is better for utility tasks.
  • Benchmarking: Compare against expert users or previous versions.

NSM

general

North Star Metric

The single metric that best captures the core value your product delivers to its customers.
Formula
Context Dependent (Unique to each product)
Things to Watch
  • Not Revenue: Revenue is a lagging indicator of value. The North Star should reflect value received.
  • Focus alignment: It serves to align the entire company towards a singular product goal.

Input Metric

general

Input Metric

Leading indicators that represent actions or activities that contribute to moving the North Star Metric.
Formula
Actionable & Controllable by teams (e.g. Inventory growth, Latency reduction)
Things to Watch
  • Actionable: Teams should be able to influence these directly.
  • Hypothesis-driven: You believe moving these will eventually move the North Star.

Output Metric

general

Output Metric

Lagging indicators that reflect the final result of business activities.
Formula
Result-oriented (e.g. Revenue, Total Churn)
Things to Watch
  • Lagging: By the time you see them move, the activities that caused the move are already over.
  • Hard to influence directly: You move them by moving input metrics.

Counter Metric

general

Counter Metric

A metric tracked to ensure that optimizing the North Star doesn't hurt other critical parts of the business.
Formula
Dependency check (e.g. If NSM is Orders, Counter might be Order Cancellations)
Things to Watch
  • Checks & Balances: Prevents teams from "gaming" the system (e.g. increasing signups but hurting quality).
  • Health check: If the counter metric tanks, your NSM growth might be hollow.

OKR

general

Objectives and Key Results

A goal-setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organizations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes.
Formula
Objective (Vision) + 3-5 Key Results (Measurable Metrics)
Things to Watch
  • Ambitious: Objectives should be qualitative and inspiring.
  • Quantitative: Key Results must be numbers (e.g. Grow MAU from 1M to 1.5M).

KPI

general

Key Performance Indicator

A quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization or employee in meeting objectives for performance.
Formula
Business Vital Signs
Things to Watch
  • Steady state: KPIs are often monitored continuously to ensure business health.
  • NSM vs KPI: A North Star is a type of KPI, but usually the most important one.

MVP

general

Minimum Viable Product

A version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
Formula
Leanest version for Learning
Things to Watch
  • Learning tool: The goal is to test hypotheses, not just build a "cheap" version.
  • Viable: It must still solve the core problem for the user.

PRD

general

Product Requirements Document

A document containing all the requirements for a certain product. It is written to allow people to understand what a product should do.
Formula
The "What" and "Why" of a feature/product
Things to Watch
  • Alignment: Ensures that everyone on the team knows what is being built and for whom.
  • Living document: Should be updated as requirements evolve.

User Persona

general

User Persona

A fictional character created to represent a user type that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way.
Formula
Demographics + Behaviors + Pain Points + Goals
Things to Watch
  • Empathy: Helps the team design with a specific human in mind.
  • Segmentation: Different personas might have different North Star Metrics if they find different value.

Adoption Rate

growth

Feature Adoption Rate

The percentage of eligible users who use a specific feature (e.g. TikiNOW, Apple Pay, Dark Mode).
Formula
(Users of Feature / Total Eligible Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Discovery vs Utility: Low adoption could mean they can't find it (Discovery) or they don't need it (Utility).
  • Depth: Adoption is binary; also track frequency/depth of use.

TTV

growth

Time to Value

The time it takes for a new user to realize the expected value from the product (Activation).
Formula
Average(Activation Timestamp - Signup Timestamp)
Things to Watch
  • Onboarding velocity: Faster TTV usually leads to higher retention.
  • Complex products: For B2B, TTV might be measured in weeks; for B2C, in minutes.

Guardrail Metric

general

Guardrail Metric

Metrics that measure the health of the system to ensure that experiments or optimizations don't cause significant negative impacts elsewhere.
Formula
Latency, Error Rate, Cancellation Rate
Things to Watch
  • Safety first: If a guardrail metric violates a threshold, stop the experiment immediately.
  • Counter Metric vs Guardrail: Counter metrics are often business-oriented (Profit vs Revenue); Guardrails are often technical (Latency, Crashes).

Deployment Frequency

general

Deployment Frequency

How often an organization successfully releases to production.
Formula
Count(Deployments) / Time Period
Things to Watch
  • Velocity: High frequency correlates with high-performing teams.
  • Batch size: Encourages smaller, safer releases.

Lead Time for Changes

general

Lead Time for Changes

The amount of time it takes a commit to get into production.
Formula
Deployment Timestamp - Commit Timestamp
Things to Watch
  • Agility: Lower lead time means faster feedback loops.
  • Bottlenecks: Highlights delays in QA or CI/CD pipelines.

MTTR

general

Mean Time to Recovery

How long it takes to restore service after a failure in production.
Formula
Sum(Down time) / Count(Incidents)
Things to Watch
  • Resilience: It is not about never failing, but recovering fast.
  • SLA: Critical for enterprise contracts.

Change Failure Rate

general

Change Failure Rate

The percentage of deployments causing a failure in production.
Formula
(Failed Deployments / Total Deployments) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Stability: High velocity is useless if quality is low.
  • Balance: Aim for speed without breaking things.

Match Rate

general

Match Rate

The percentage of buyers (demand) who find a seller (supply) that meets their criteria.
Formula
(Successful Matches / Total Searches or Requests) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Liquidity quality: A high match rate ensures users don't leave empty-handed.
  • Zero results: Track "Zero Result Searches" closely.

Search to Fill

general

Search to Fill Rate

The percentage of searches that result in a successful transaction or conversion.
Formula
(Transactions / Total Searches) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Relevance: Indicates how well the inventory matches user intent.
  • Pricing: Also affected by price matching.

Buyer/Seller Overlap

general

Buyer/Seller Overlap

The percentage of users who act as both buyers and sellers on the platform.
Formula
(Users who Buy AND Sell / Total Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Network effects: High overlap (e.g. Poshmark, Airbnb) creates a powerful, self-sustaining ecosystem.
  • Acquisition: Acquiring one user gets you both supply and demand.

Crash-Free Users

general

Crash-Free Users Rate

The percentage of users who did not experience a crash in a given time period.
Formula
((Total Users - Users with Crash) / Total Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Stability: Target > 99.9% for high-quality apps.
  • Retention killer: Crashes are the fastest way to lose a mobile user.

ANR Rate

general

Application Not Responding Rate

The percentage of sessions where the app froze/stopped responding for > 5 seconds.
Formula
(ANR Sessions / Total Sessions) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Frustration: Worse than a crash because the user waits.
  • Performance: Often tied to main thread blocking.

App Store Conversion

general

App Store Conversion Rate

The percentage of users who download the app after viewing its App Store page.
Formula
(Installs / Page Views) * 100
Things to Watch
  • ASO: Optimize screenshots, reviews, and description.
  • First impression: This is the landing page for mobile.

DAP / MAP

growth

Daily/Monthly Active People

A user-centric variation of DAU used by Facebook/Meta to count unique physical people (not just accounts).
Formula
Count(Unique Physical Humans Active)
Things to Watch
  • De-duplication: Requires advanced identity matching to link devices/accounts.
  • Family Metrics: Used to aggregate usage across a family of apps (FB, Insta, WhatsApp).

Resurrection Rate

retention

User Resurrection Rate

The percentage of dormant users who return to the app after a significant period of inactivity.
Formula
(Resurrected Users / Total Dormant Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Win-back: Measures the effectiveness of re-engagement campaigns (email, push).
  • Cheaper than new: Resurrecting a user is often cheaper than acquiring a completely new one.

Fulfillment Rate

general

Fulfillment Rate

The percentage of customer orders or service requests that are successfully completed/delivered.
Formula
(Completed Orders / Total Orders Placed) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Marketplace Trust: Low fulfillment kills trust on the demand side.
  • Supply issue: Often indicates lack of supply liquidity or operational failures.

Streak

engagement

User Streak Length

The number of consecutive days/weeks a user has performed a core action.
Formula
Count(Consecutive Active Periods)
Things to Watch
  • Gamification: The most powerful retention mechanic in EdTech (Duolingo) and Health.
  • Loss Aversion: Users return just to "save the streak".

KYC Success Rate

general

KYC Pass Rate

The percentage of users who successfully complete the Know Your Customer (identity verification) process.
Formula
(Verified Users / Total KYC Attempts) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Funnel Blocker: KYC is the biggest drop-off point in Fintech onboarding.
  • Fraud balance: Too easy = fraud; Too hard = lost users.

Items per Basket

revenue

Items Per Basket (UPT)

The average number of individual items purchased in a single transaction.
Formula
Total Items Sold / Total Transactions
Things to Watch
  • Bundling proxy: High UPT usually means successful cross-selling.
  • Inventory efficiency: Helps move more SKUs per logistics cost unit.

Unit Sales

revenue

Unit Sales

The total number of physical or digital units sold.
Formula
Count(Items Sold)
Things to Watch
  • Hardware North Star: For Apple/Tesla, units sold is the primary measure of scale.
  • Install Base: Units sold accumulates into Active Installed Base.

Lessons Completed

engagement

Lessons Completed

The volume of educational units successfully finished by learners.
Formula
Count(Completed Lessons)
Things to Watch
  • Value metric: For EdTech, this is the core value exchange.
  • Paywall trigger: Often used as a limit before requiring payment.

Online Hours

growth

Provider Online Hours

The total duration that service providers (drivers, doctors) are available to accept work.
Formula
Sum(Time Available Online)
Things to Watch
  • Supply Capacity: The raw capacity of a service marketplace.
  • Peak vs Off-peak: Utilization rate is Online Hours / Busy Hours.

Health Logs

engagement

Activities/Meals Logged

The frequency of users manually entering health data (food, workout, symptom).
Formula
Count(User Logs)
Things to Watch
  • Active Input: Requires high effort; indicators of high intent.
  • Retention: Logging is usually the primary habit loop in health apps.

Velocity

general

Sprint Velocity

The amount of work a team can tackle during a single Sprint (usually measured in story points).
Formula
Sum(Story Points of Completed User Stories in a Sprint)
Things to Watch
  • Not a comparison tool: Velocity is unique to each team. Do not compare Team A's velocity to Team B's.
  • Predictability: The goal is a stable velocity, not an constantly increasing one.

Lead Time

general

Product Lead Time

The total time elapsed from the moment a new idea/request is logged until it is delivered to the customer.
Formula
Average(Delivery Timestamp - Creation Timestamp)
Things to Watch
  • Customer Centric: This is the time the customer actually experiences waiting.
  • Cycle vs Lead: Cycle time is when dev starts; Lead time is from when the ticket is created.

WSJF

general

Weighted Shortest Job First

A prioritization model used to sequence jobs (e.g., Features, Capabilities) to produce maximum economic benefit.
Formula
Cost of Delay / Job Size
Things to Watch
  • Cost of Delay = User-Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction/Opportunity Enablement.
  • Job Size = Effort/Duration. Doing high-value, easy things first wins.

Adoption Rate

growth

Feature Adoption Rate

The percentage of your active users who have used a specific new feature.
Formula
(Users who used Feature X / Total Active Users) * 100
Things to Watch
  • Time-bound: Measure adoption at 1 day, 7 days, and 30 days post-launch.
  • Depth vs Breadth: Adoption rate measures breadth (how many tried it), not depth (how often they use it).

TTV

engagement

Time To Value

The amount of time it takes a new customer to realize value from your product.
Formula
Average(Time of Aha Moment - Time of Signup)
Things to Watch
  • Onboarding: Shortening TTV is the primary goal of user onboarding.
  • B2B vs B2C: TTV in B2C is often measured in minutes; in Enterprise B2B, it can be weeks/months.