Startup KPIs

Growth-related key performance indicators are important for any business, but they’re especially vital for startups. Use short and long-term metrics to monitor your business’ day-to-day health and overall viability.

1. Activation Rate

  • What is it: How many users reach an important milestone
  • Why track it: Helps you gauge whether customers are successfully onboarding

2. Burn Rate

  • What is it: How quickly your business is spending money
  • Why track it: Helps you see whether you need to cut back on spending or if you can afford to invest more

3. Cash Runway

  • What is it: Uses burn rate and current balance to determine how long your funds will last
  • Why track it: Shows how soon you need to raise new capital or increase revenue

4. Customer Churn Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of customers lost in a given time frame
  • Why track it: Helps you gauge customer satisfaction

5. DAU/MAU Ratio

  • What is it: Ratio of daily active users to monthly active users
  • Why track it: Shows how often people are using your product

6. Revenue Growth Rate

  • What is it: Month-over-month percent increase in revenue
  • Why track it: Helps you see how quickly your startup is growing

Ecommerce KPIs

Ecommerce is an incredibly competitive field. The best way to help your business thrive is by using data to understand your customers and serve them in the best possible way.

7. Average Order Value

  • What is it: Average amount a customer spends per order on your site
  • Why track it: Serves as a larger indicator of whether overall profits are increasing or decreasing

8. Customer Acquisition Cost

  • What is it: How much you spend to gain a new customer
  • Why track it: Helps you determine if marketing costs are too high

9. Listing Conversion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of a listing’s viewers who go on to make a purchase
  • Why track it: Shows whether your product listings need to be adjusted to attract more customers

10. New Buyer Growth Rate

  • What is it: Calculates how fast you are adding new buyers to your marketplace
  • Why track it: Helps determine if you need to invest more in attracting new buyers

11. New Seller Growth Rate

  • What is it: Tracks how fast sellers are being added to meet demand of buyers
  • Why track it: Helps determine if you need to investigate new ways to attract sellers

12. Percentage of Active Listings

  • What is it: Percentage of total listings that get multiple views per week
  • Why track it: Illustrates which listing styles you should imitate to drive more traffic and potentially increase conversions

13. Percentage of Active Sellers

  • What is it: Calculates the proportion of sellers who regularly add new listings
  • Why track it: Helps you look beyond seller volume to see how sellers are contributing to overall growth

14. Percentage of Engaged Buyers

  • What is it: Percentage of total buyers who searched for or purchased a product recently
  • Why track it: Shows how many of your buyers are actively using your site

15. Percentage of Satisfied Transactions

  • What is it: Percentage of total product reviews that are positive
  • Why track it: Helps you track overall customer satisfaction and identify poorly performing products

16. Purchase Frequency

  • What is it: The average number of times a customer purchases from you in a set time period
  • Why track it: Helps indicate customer loyalty and purchasing behaviour

17. Repeat Customer Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of customers who are making a repeat purchase
  • Why track it: Helps gauge overall customer loyalty and determine if you need to revamp retention efforts

18. Revenue by Traffic Source

  • What is it: Percentage of revenue coming from different sources (social media, organic search, paid search, etc.)
  • Why track it: Helps you identify your most valuable marketing channels

19. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of customers who add items to their cart but never purchase
  • Why track it: Shows whether your checkout process may be too complicated, causing shoppers to quit before finishing

20. Time to Purchase

  • What is it: The average time or number of sessions for a customer to purchase
  • Why track it: Helps you to understand purchasing behaviour

Finance KPIs

Monitor the financial health of your business and prove your viability to shareholders with these metrics.

21. Current Accounts Payable

  • What is it: Total outstanding bills for the current month
  • Why track it: Helps with budget planning and monitoring recurring expenses

22. Current Accounts Receivable

  • What is it: Total outstanding invoices owed to your company
  • Why track it: Helps keep track of upcoming revenue, so you can accurately plan cashflow

23. Gross Profit Margin

  • What is it: Total profit, expressed as a percentage of revenue, before adjusting for operating expenses
  • Why track it: Helps you determine the profitability of specific products and the company as a whole

24. Quick Ratio

  • What is it: Ratio of revenue gains to revenue losses
  • Why track it: Gives a quick picture of how efficiently the business is growing

Marketing KPIs

If you’re not tracking campaign performance, you won’t know if your marketing efforts are paying off. Use KPIs to justify your initiatives and make adjustments if needed.

25. Ad Click-Through Rate (CTR)

  • What is it: Percentage of people who click an ad after seeing it
  • Why track it: Shows how appealing your ad is and whether you might need to change ad images or copy

26. Ad Revenue

  • What is it: Amount of revenue coming in from other companies advertising on your site. You can break this KPI down further to look at revenue per impression or revenue per pageview.
  • Why track it: Measures how valuable your website traffic is and informs your larger ad strategy

27. Bounce Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of people who navigate away from your site immediately after viewing the landing page
  • Why track it: Signals whether you need to redesign your landing page

28. Brand Recall

  • What is it: Percentage of people surveyed who remember or correctly identify your brand
  • Why track it: Indicates the success and reach of your marketing efforts

29. Branded Search Traffic

  • What is it: Amount of traffic coming to your site from people searching for branded keywords
  • Why track it: Shows how many people heard of your brand and wanted to find out more

30. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

  • What is it: Amount spent to acquire a new customer through a specified channel
  • Why track it: Helps you evaluate the value of different marketing channels

31. LTV:CAC Ratio

  • What is it: Compares the total average revenue per customer with the average cost of gaining a customer
  • Why track it: Shows whether your marketing spend is paying off

32. Marketing ROI

  • What is it: Percentage of company profit that comes from paid marketing efforts
  • Why track it: Measures return on investment of paid marketing campaigns

33. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

  • What is it: Measures the number of satisfied customers and the average degree of satisfaction
  • Why track it: Shows how happy your customers are overall

34. Pages Viewed per Session

  • What is it: How many pages a single user views during one website session
  • Why track it: Gives you a sense of how engaging your website is

35. Percentage of New Users

  • What is it: Percentage of total users who are visiting for the first time
  • Why track it: Helps you see whether your site is attractive and user-friendly enough to bring in new users

36. Press Clippings

  • What is it: How often your brand is mentioned in the press
  • Why track it: Indicates the level of brand awareness, and more press clippings can lead to greater brand recall

37. Social Media Mentions

  • What is it: How often your brand is mentioned across social media platforms
  • Why track it: Indicates the level of online brand awareness

38. Viral Coefficient

  • What is it: Number of new users that each existing user generates
  • Why track it: Helps track the success of referral programs and social marketing efforts

39. Website Conversion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of website visitors who take a set action, such as downloading an ebook or making a purchase
  • Why track it: Helps you see if your marketing is effective in driving people to take the desired action

40. Website Traffic Growth

  • What is it: Increase or decrease in website visits over a certain time frame
  • Why track it: Indicates whether you may need to adjust your traffic-focused marketing campaigns

SaaS KPIs

SaaS companies need metrics that will help them track current leads and find ways to continually increase lead volume over time. As a result, SaaS KPIs are more focused than other industries on recurring revenue and the lifetime value of a customer.

41. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

  • What is it: The total amount of recurring revenue a business is due to receive over the subsequent 12 month period.
  • Why track it: Understand the total value of your subscriptions at any one time.

42. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)

  • What is it: Average amount a business makes on one account, usually calculated monthly or yearly
  • Why track it: Helps show trends in account upgrades or downgrades and if you need to reevaluate your pricing plan

43. CAC Payback Period

  • What is it: How long it takes to earn back what you spent acquiring a customer
  • Why track it: Shows you whether your pricing may be too low

44. Completion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of customers who complete a set goal within your user onboarding process
  • Why track it: Indicates whether your onboarding process may be confusing or difficult

45. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

  • What is it: Average revenue per customer from acquisition to churn
  • Why track it: Helps you see if your marketing costs are too high, especially when compared with CAC

46. Expansion MRR Rate

  • What is it: New monthly recurring revenue coming from existing customers
  • Why track it: Shows whether you’re successfully generating upsells

47. Gross MRR Churn Rate

  • What is it: Total percentage of monthly revenue lost through downgrades or cancellations
  • Why track it: Indicates if you need to focus more on customer retention strategies

48. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

  • What is it: The average amount of recurring revenue a business is set to receive each month
  • Why track it: Understand the total value of your subscriptions at any one time.

49. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Closed vs Quota

  • What is it: Amount of new recurring revenue acquired in a month compared to the target MRR for that month
  • Why track it: Helps you assess whether you need to rethink your sales strategy to increase revenue or whether your target MRR is unrealistic

50. Net MRR Churn Rate

  • What is it: Measure of lost revenue from downgrades or cancellations after factoring in new revenue from expansions
  • Why track it: Offers a more complete picture of your company’s health than the overall churn rate

51. Net MRR Growth Rate

  • What is it: Percentage increase in net MRR month-over-month
  • Why track it: Helps you measure the profitability of your company

52. Signup to Subscriber Conversion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of people who upgrade from free trials or freemium products to paid versions
  • Why track it: Indicates how successfully marketing is driving non-paying customers to convert

Sales KPIs

Harness your team’s competitive energy and help them respond to leads faster by tracking real-time sales KPIs. At the same time, improve overall performance by monitoring big-picture metrics, like average follow-up attempts.

53. Activity Per Rep

  • What is it: Total tasks each rep completes in a given time period, such as phone calls, emails, or demos
  • Why track it: Helps you monitor sales team productivity

54. Average Follow-up Attempts

  • What is it: Average number of contact attempts sales reps make before closing each lead
  • Why track it: Shows you how persistent sales reps are before giving up on a lead

55. Average Purchase Value

  • What is it: Average amount a customer spends on a transaction when a sales rep closes a deal
  • Why track it: Can help you determine the volume of deals you need to meet your revenue goals

56. Average Sales Cycle Length

  • What is it: Average length of time from initial contact to closing a deal
  • Why track it: Useful when setting long-term budgets and setting deadlines for sales goals

57. Lead Response Time

  • What is it: Average time it takes sales reps to follow up after identifying a lead
  • Why track it: Shows you if sales reps need to speed up their outreach efforts

58. Lead Velocity Rate

  • What is it: Month-over-month growth rate of qualified leads
  • Why track it: Helps you predict future revenue, including possible fluctuations

59. MQL to SQL Conversion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of marketing qualified leads (MQL) who convert to sales qualified leads (SQL)
  • Why track it: Helps you predict revenue growth and indicates the quality of marketing and lead-screening efforts

60. Pipeline Volume vs Goal

  • What is it: Number of leads currently in the sales pipeline compared to your target lead amount
  • Why track it: Shows you whether your sales team is on track to meet their overall sales quota

61. SQL to Win Conversion Rate

  • What is it: Number of SQLs who become customers
  • Why track it: Indicates whether you need to adjust your sales strategy to get more conversions

Mobile App KPIs

These KPIs help you understand how customers view your app, so you can make improvements and keep people coming back for more.

62. App Ranking

  • What is it: Position of your app within app marketplaces, like Google Play and the Apple app store
  • Why track it: Shows how visible your app is, which is a predictor of higher download numbers

63. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

  • What is it: Average revenue generated for each user of your app
  • Why track it: Helps you evaluate app pricing and in-app purchase options

64. Cost Per Install

  • What is it: Amount it costs you in paid ad spend for each person who downloads the app
  • Why track it: Shows whether your marketing investments are paying off or if you need to adjust your campaigns

65. Retention Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of people who continue using your app over a set period of time
  • Why track it: Indicates how engaging your app is and whether your company is educating users on how to get long-term value out of the app

66. Session Length

  • What is it: Amount of time a user spends on the app in one session, from launching the app to closing it
  • Why track it: Indicates whether users are staying in the app long enough to complete the actions you want them to

HR KPIs

Track these human resources KPIs to recruit more efficiently, improve onboarding, and create a positive work environment.

67. Absence Rate

  • What is it: How often employees are out for unplanned absences like an illness
  • Why track it: Gives you a glimpse of the overall wellness of a team or department

68. Application Completion Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of candidates who complete and submit an application after starting it
  • Why track it: Helps you see if there’s an issue with the application process, causing people to quit before finishing

69. Candidates per Hire

  • What is it: Number of candidates you have compared to the number of hires you make
  • Why track it: Can help you predict how many candidates you need to fill a future role and whether you need to improve your current candidate sourcing methods

70. Candidates per Opening

  • What is it: Number of candidate applications over a set time frame compared to the number of job openings during the same time
  • Why track it: Helps you gauge the success of your recruitment marketing

71. Cost per Hire

  • What is it: Amount you spend in external and internal recruiting costs for each hire you make
  • Why track it: Helps you create realistic recruitment budgets

72. Employee Net Promoter Score

  • What is it: Measures how likely an employee is to recommend working at your company to their friends and family
  • Why track it: Helps you determine the level of employee happiness and work to foster a positive environment

73. Gender Pay Gap

  • What is it: Difference in average pay between men and women or non-binary people in the same role
  • Why track it: Shows whether you need to take action to create a more equal workplace

74. Gender Ratio

  • What is it: Shows the proportion of your employees who identify with each gender group
  • Why track it: Indicates if you might have bias in your hiring processes

75. Headcount

  • What is it: Total number of staff and consultants you have at a given time
  • Why track it: Helps you measure how quickly your company is growing

76. Hires by Department

  • What is it: Number of hires made by each department over a set time frame
  • Why track it: Helps you track growth for each department

77. Hires by Month

  • What is it: Number of people you hired in a given month
  • Why track it: Helps you track annual hiring trends

78. Length of Service

  • What is it: Average length of time employees have spent at your company
  • Why track it: Highlights whether your company struggles with retention

79. New Hire Turnover Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of new hires who leave shortly after joining, such as during their probation period
  • Why track it: Indicates if your job descriptions and internal company policies are unclear on what the role requires

80. New Starters per Month

  • What is it: How many new hires you have each month
  • Why track it: Helps you make sure you have enough resources and staff to onboard all new hires

81. Passive Candidate Hire Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of Passive Candidate Hires from your total number of hires
  • Why track it: Lets you know if your strategy for attracting Passive Candidates is working

82. Permanent to Freelance Staff Ratio

  • What is it: The number of permanent staff you have in your company compared to the number of freelance staff
  • Why track it: Indicates if you might have staffing instability later on due to a high number of freelance workers

83. Source of Hire

  • What is it: Shows you where people are finding your job postings and what percentage of total hires comes from a particular source
  • Why track it: Helps you redirect your recruitment marketing to the most valuable channels

84. Time to Fill

  • What is it: Average time it takes to hire someone for a position
  • Why track it: Measures the efficiency of your current recruitment process

85. Training Expenses

  • What is it: Total amount of money you spend on employee training
  • Why track it: Helps you see if you need to invest in different training solutions, especially when compared with employee training satisfaction and performance reports

86. Yield Ratio

  • What is it: Percentage of candidates who move from one stage of hiring to the next
  • Why track it: Highlights slow hiring phases that need improvement to keep candidates moving forward

Customer Support KPIs

Help your support team measure and improve their customer service by tracking customer satisfaction, ongoing conversations, and more.

87. Agent Touches per Ticket

  • What is it: The number of touches required to solve a ticket
  • Why track it: Higher numbers of touches can negatively impact CSAT

88. Average Handle Time (AHT)

  • What is it: The average time an agent spends on each call or ticket
  • Why track it: Ensures customer calls are conducted efficiently

89. Average Reply Time (ART)

  • What is it: The average time a customer has to wait for a reply after contacting support
  • Why track it: Helps highlight if all communications are being dealt with promptly rather than just First Touch

90. Average Resolution Time

  • What is it: The average time taken for a ticket to be solved
  • Why track it: Ensures customers' issues are resolved quickly

91. Call Abandonment Rate

  • What is it: The proportion of calls where the customer hangs before their call is answered
  • Why track it: High abandonment rates are a likely to result in poor customer satisfaction

92. Conversations Per Teammate

  • What is it: Number of customer interactions for each member of the customer support team, typically per day
  • Why track it: Helps you determine if support reps’ workloads are reasonable or overwhelming

93. Customer Effort Score (CES)

  • What is it: Scores how easy customers find it to solve their problem
  • Why track it: Feeds into overall customer satisfaction

94. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

  • What is it: Shows you how happy your customers are based on customer experience survey responses
  • Why track it: Measures how well your support team is handling customer concerns

95. Escalation Rate

  • What is it: Percentage of support tickets that are escalated to a new support tier
  • Why track it: Shows the effectiveness of your first line of support

96. First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR)

  • What is it: Shows you what proportion of tickets are solved on first contact
  • Why track it: Measures how efficient your team are at solving customer issues

97. First Response Time (FRT)

  • What is it: The time it takes the customer support team to respond after a customer submits a ticket
  • Why track it: Helps you reduce customer wait times and increase satisfaction

98. Knowledge Base Views

  • What is it: Number of pageviews on your self-help support pages
  • Why track it: Allows you to identify the most common customer issues and address the root causes of these problems

99. Most Common Issues

  • What is it: Number of pageviews on your self-help support pages
  • Why track it: Allows you to identify the most common customer issues and address the root causes of these problems

100. Percentage of Positive Votes

  • What is it: The percentage of positive votes that your help center articles receive (for help centers where readers can vote on articles)
  • Why track it: Helps you identify articles that need revisions and brainstorm new article ideas based on popular topics

101. Ratio of Views vs Tickets submitted

  • What is it: Compares the number of pageviews on help center pages to the number of support tickets sent in
  • Why track it: Helps you see if customers are able to solve issues independently or if they need assistance from reps

102. Ticket Backlog

  • What is it: Number of unresolved customer support tickets in a given time period
  • Why track it: Indicates if your team needs help handling their current ticket volume

103. Ticket Volume

  • What is it: Total tickets in your queue over a period of time
  • Why track it: Shows you trends in numbers of tickets your team is dealing with at a given time