Metric Glossary

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

106 metrics covering Growth, Revenue, Retention, and Strategy.

DAU — 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)

MAU — 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)

WAU — 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)

Active Hosts — 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)

New Host Signups / Signups — New User Signups

The number of new users registering an account for the first time.

Formula: Count(Users Registering Account)

Activation Rate — 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

Subscriber Base — Total Subscribers

The total count of users with an active subscription.

Formula: Count(Users with status = "active")

Organic Traffic — Organic User Traffic

Visits to your site/app that come from unpaid search results.

Formula: Count(Sessions where Source = Organic Search)

Viral Coefficient (K-factor) — Viral Coefficient

The number of new users each existing user successfully converts.

Formula: Avg # of Invitations sent * Conversion rate of Invitations

CPI — 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

PMF — 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)

Aha! Moment — Aha! Moment

The specific moment when a user first realizes the value of your product.

Formula: User performs [Action] + [Frequency] within [Time Period]

Referral Rate — Referral Rate

The percentage of existing customers who refer new customers.

Formula: (Number of Referrals / Total Customers) * 100

PQL — Product Qualified Leads

A lead who has experienced meaningful value using your product (e.g. valid trial user).

Formula: Users hitting Activation criteria

ARR — 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)

GMV — 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

GMS — Gross Merchandise Sales

The total value of all sales made on a marketplace platform (e.g. Etsy).

Formula: Sum(Sales Volume)

Take Rate — Take Rate / Commision Rate

The percentage of GMV or GMS that a marketplace collects as revenue.

Formula: (Revenue / GMV) * 100

TPV — Total Payment Volume

The total value of transactions processed through a payments platform.

Formula: Sum(Value of all processed transactions)

AOV — Average Order Value

The average amount spent each time a customer places an order.

Formula: Total Revenue / Total Number of Orders

ARPU — Average Revenue Per User

The average revenue generated per active individual user.

Formula: Total Revenue / Total Active Users

LTV — Lifetime Value

The predicted net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

Formula: (ARPU * Gross Margin %) / Churn Rate

CAC — Customer Acquisition Cost

The cost associated with convincing a customer to buy a product/service.

Formula: (Sales + Marketing Expenses) / Number of New Customers Acquired

LTV:CAC — LTV to CAC Ratio

A metric comparing the lifetime value of a customer to the cost of acquiring them.

Formula: LTV / CAC

CLV — Customer Lifetime Value

Total revenue a customer generates during their entire relationship with the company.

Formula: Avg Order Value * Purchase Frequency * Customer Lifespan

CAC Payback Period — CAC Payback Period

The time it takes to earn back the cost of acquiring a customer.

Formula: CAC / (ARPU * Gross Margin %)

Gross Margin — Gross Margin

The percentage of revenue left after subtracting the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).

Formula: ((Revenue - COGS) / Revenue) * 100

EBITDA — EBITDA

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. A proxy for operating cash flow.

Formula: Net Income + Interest + Taxes + Depreciation + Amortization

Win Rate — Sales Opportunity Win Rate

The percentage of sales opportunities that convert into closed deals.

Formula: (Closed Won Deals / Total Opportunities) * 100

Pipeline Value — Sales Pipeline Value

The total estimated value of all open sales opportunities.

Formula: Sum(Opportunity Value * Probability to Close)

New Business Revenue — Revenue from New Customers

Revenue generated strictly from new logos acquired in the period.

Formula: Sum(Revenue from Customers with StartDate in Period)

Expansion Revenue — Expansion Revenue

Additional revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or add-ons.

Formula: Sum(Upsell + Cross-sell Revenue)

Burn Rate — Net Burn Rate

The rate at which a company uses its cash reserves to cover operating expenses.

Formula: Cash Spent - Cash Revenue (per month)

Runway — Cash Runway

The amount of time a company has before it runs out of cash.

Formula: Current Cash Balance / Monthly Net Burn Rate

Magic Number — SaaS Magic Number

A measure of sales and marketing efficiency.

Formula: (Current Q Revenue - Previous Q Revenue) * 4 / Previous Q Sales & Marketing Spend

MRR — Monthly Recurring Revenue

The predictable total revenue generated by your business from all active subscriptions in a particular month.

Formula: Sum(Monthly Subscription Fees)

Net Revenue Churn — 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

Quick Ratio — SaaS Quick Ratio

Checks if a company is growing revenue efficiently despite churn.

Formula: (New MRR + Expansion MRR) / (lost MRR + Contraction MRR)

Rule of 40 — 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 %

Burn Multiple — Burn Multiple

How much cash you are burning to generate each incremental dollar of ARR.

Formula: Net Burn / Net New ARR

Churn Rate — 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

NDR / NRR — 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

Repeat Purchase Rate — Repeat Customer Rate

The percentage of customers who have made more than one purchase.

Formula: (Customers with > 1 Order / Total Unique Customers) * 100

Stickiness — Stickiness Ratio (DAU/MAU)

The ratio of daily active users to monthly active users, measuring how addictive a product is.

Formula: (DAU / MAU) * 100

Sessions per User — Average Frequency of Use

How often users open and engage with the app.

Formula: Total Sessions / Total Active Users

Time Spent — Average Time Spent per User

The duration a user spends actively using the product.

Formula: Total Session Duration / Total Active Users

Content Consumption — Content Consumption

Metric tracking how much content users view, watch, or read (e.g. Minutes Watched, Articles Read).

Formula: Sum(Content Units Consumed)

Content Engagement — Engagement with Content

Interactions with content beyond passive consumption (e.g. Likes, Shares, Comments).

Formula: Sum(Likes + Comments + Shares)

Content Creation / Files Created — 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)

Messages Sent — Communication Volume

Total number of messages exchanged, indicating communication activity.

Formula: Count(Messages Successfully Sent)

Project Activity — Project Management Activity

The level of active engagement within project management tools (e.g. Tasks moved, tickets updated).

Formula: Count(Task Updates + Comments + Transitions)

Meeting Volume — Meeting Activity

The number or duration of meetings hosted on the platform.

Formula: Count(Meetings with > 1 participant)

Bounce Rate — 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

Cart Abandonment — 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

NPS — Net Promoter Score

A sentiment metric that measures customer loyalty.

Formula: % Promoters (9-10) - % Detractors (0-6)

Conversion Rate — 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

Resolution Time — 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)

Cycle Time — Development Cycle Time

The time elapsed between starting work on a task and finishing it.

Formula: Average(Completion Timestamp - Start Timestamp)

User Efficiency — User Workflow Efficiency

Metrics indicating how quickly users get value (e.g. Time to Task Completion).

Formula: Average(Time to Complete Core Action)

Supply Liquidity — Marketplace Supply Liquidity

The percentage of listings or service providers that are available and result in a transaction.

Formula: (Transactions / Active Listings) * 100

SUS — System Usability Scale

A standardized 10-item questionnaire used to assess the usability of a system.

Formula: Survey Score (0-100)

CES — 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?"

Task Success Rate — Task Success Rate

The percentage of users who can successfully complete a specific task.

Formula: (Successful Completions / Total Attempts) * 100

Time on Task — Time on Task

The time required for a user to complete a specific task successfully.

Formula: End Time - Start Time

NSM — 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)

Input Metric — 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)

Output Metric — Output Metric

Lagging indicators that reflect the final result of business activities.

Formula: Result-oriented (e.g. Revenue, Total Churn)

Counter Metric — 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)

OKR — 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)

KPI — 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

MVP — 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

PRD — 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

User Persona — 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

Adoption Rate — 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

TTV — 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)

Guardrail Metric — 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

Lead Time for Changes — Lead Time for Changes

The amount of time it takes a commit to get into production.

Formula: Deployment Timestamp - Commit Timestamp

MTTR — Mean Time to Recovery

How long it takes to restore service after a failure in production.

Formula: Sum(Down time) / Count(Incidents)

Match Rate — Match Rate

The percentage of buyers (demand) who find a seller (supply) that meets their criteria.

Formula: (Successful Matches / Total Searches or Requests) * 100

Search to Fill — Search to Fill Rate

The percentage of searches that result in a successful transaction or conversion.

Formula: (Transactions / Total Searches) * 100

Buyer/Seller Overlap — 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

Crash-Free Users — 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

ANR Rate — Application Not Responding Rate

The percentage of sessions where the app froze/stopped responding for > 5 seconds.

Formula: (ANR Sessions / Total Sessions) * 100

App Store Conversion — App Store Conversion Rate

The percentage of users who download the app after viewing its App Store page.

Formula: (Installs / Page Views) * 100

DAP / MAP — 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)

Resurrection Rate — 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

Fulfillment Rate — Fulfillment Rate

The percentage of customer orders or service requests that are successfully completed/delivered.

Formula: (Completed Orders / Total Orders Placed) * 100

Streak — User Streak Length

The number of consecutive days/weeks a user has performed a core action.

Formula: Count(Consecutive Active Periods)

KYC Success Rate — KYC Pass Rate

The percentage of users who successfully complete the Know Your Customer (identity verification) process.

Formula: (Verified Users / Total KYC Attempts) * 100

Items per Basket — Items Per Basket (UPT)

The average number of individual items purchased in a single transaction.

Formula: Total Items Sold / Total Transactions

Unit Sales — Unit Sales

The total number of physical or digital units sold.

Formula: Count(Items Sold)

Lessons Completed — Lessons Completed

The volume of educational units successfully finished by learners.

Formula: Count(Completed Lessons)

Online Hours — Provider Online Hours

The total duration that service providers (drivers, doctors) are available to accept work.

Formula: Sum(Time Available Online)

Health Logs — Activities/Meals Logged

The frequency of users manually entering health data (food, workout, symptom).

Formula: Count(User Logs)

Velocity — 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)

Lead Time — 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)

WSJF — 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

TTV — 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)

GRR — Gross Retention Rate

The percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over a given period, excluding any expansion revenue (upsells). Max is 100%.

Formula: ((Starting Revenue - Revenue Lost to Churn & Downsells) / Starting Revenue) * 100

Free-to-Paid Conversion — Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate

The percentage of free or trial users who successfully convert into paying customers.

Formula: (Number of Converted Paid Users / Total Free Users in Cohort) * 100

Feature Adoption — Feature Adoption Rate

The percentage of active users who engage with a specific, newly launched feature.

Formula: (Number of Users Using Specific Feature / Total Active Users) * 100

Say/Do Ratio — Sprint Commitment Reliability (Say/Do)

The percentage of committed story points or tasks that the team successfully completed during a sprint cycle.

Formula: (Completed Story Points / Committed Story Points at Sprint Start) * 100

Deployment Frequency — Deployment Frequency (DORA)

How often an organization successfully releases to production.

Formula: Count(Successful Deployments to Production in a Time Period)

Lead Time — Lead Time for Changes (DORA)

The amount of time it takes a commit to get into production.

Formula: Average(Time of Deployment - Time of Commit)

Change Failure Rate — Change Failure Rate (DORA)

The percentage of deployments causing a failure in production that require immediate remediation (e.g., rollback, hotfix).

Formula: (Deployments Resulting in Failure / Total Deployments) * 100

Defect Escape Rate — Defect Escape Rate

The ratio of bugs found in production versus bugs found during QA/testing phases.

Formula: (Bugs Found in Production / Total Bugs Found) * 100

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.

Why this metric?

Đo lường nhịp đập sống còn của sản phẩm theo từng ngày, đặc biệt thiết yếu với các App Social/Tin tức cần thói quen sử dụng hàng ngày (Daily Habit). Tuy nhiên, hãy thận trọng: Rất nhiều PM lạm dụng DAU như một Vanity Metric (Chỉ số ảo). Nếu định nghĩa "Active" sai (chỉ login mà không tương tác), DAU cao cũng chỉ là đám đông "zombie user" đốt tiền server.

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).

Why this metric?

Đây là cầu nối quyết định biến "Người qua đường" thành "Khách hàng thực sự" khi họ nếm được giá trị cốt lõi đầu tiên (Aha! Moment). Chạy Marketing kéo user về rất đắt đỏ, nếu Activation lẹt đẹt < 10% nghĩa là bạn đang xả tiền xuống cống. Tập trung làm tốt Activation sẽ tự động kéo Retention lên mà không tốn thêm đồng Ads nào.

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.

Why this metric?

Giúp trả lời câu hỏi cốt tử: "Sản phẩm này có đáng để tồn tại không?". Nó xác nhận sự phù hợp dòng chảy giữa giải pháp của bạn và khao khát của thị trường. Hãy cẩn trọng: Trước khi thực sự đạt được PMF, mọi nỗ lực bơm tiền chạy Ads để Scale đều là "Premature Scaling" - một liều thuốc độc dẫn tới vỡ nợ.

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.

Why this metric?

Đo lường trần doanh thu dài hạn, cho bạn biết chính xác một khách hàng "đáng giá" bao nhiêu trong mắt hệ thống kinh doanh. Dựa vào đó bạn thiết lập giới hạn tối đa cho ngân sách tải User (Marketing). Nếu không nắm chắc LTV, việc vung tiền chạy Ads mua người dùng chẳng khác nào đánh bạc mù quáng.

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).

Why this metric?

Giúp bạn kiểm soát tính hiệu quả của cỗ máy bán hàng & Marketing, xem việc kéo 1 khách hàng về tốn kém đến đâu. Trong thế giới Ads ngày càng đắt đỏ (Google/FB bóp nghẹt), CAC luôn chực chờ "mập lên". Product team phải thiết kế được tính Viral/PLG (Product-Led Growth) để ghì CAC xuống chậm lại.

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.

Why this metric?

Mang lại dòng tiền ổn định (Predictable Revenue) giúp công ty có thể dự phóng ngân sách tái đầu tư R&D. Khác với doanh thu bán đứt 1 lần, MRR là bằng chứng đanh thép cho thấy khách hàng sẵn sàng bỏ tiền duy trì liên tục. Định giá của công ty SaaS sẽ bay cao hay chạm đáy phụ thuộc hoàn toàn vào quỹ đạo MRR.

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.

Why this metric?

Đo lường sức chịu đựng và mức độ ức chế của khách hàng với sự cố sản phẩm. Tăng trưởng bao nhiêu cũng vô nghĩa nếu "cái xô bị thủng" làm Churn Rate quá bự. Thay vì bị ép chạy tính năng mới (Feature Factory) để lừa khách mới, PM thực dụng sẽ ưu tiên tối ưu UX để bịt kín lỗ rò rỉ này trước tiên.

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.

Why this metric?

Chỉ số quyền lực nhất đánh giá toàn diện cả sức khỏe duy trì (Retention) lẫn khả năng mở rộng doanh thu (Expansion). Đạt NDR > 100% được ví như có Chén Thánh (Holy Grail), hệ thống sẽ tự động bùng nổ doanh thu theo thời gian nhờ khách tự nâng cấp gói, mà không tốn công gồng gánh kiếm thêm khách mới.

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).

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.

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.

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.

GRR

retention

Gross Retention Rate

The percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over a given period, excluding any expansion revenue (upsells). Max is 100%.

Formula

((Starting Revenue - Revenue Lost to Churn & Downsells) / Starting Revenue) * 100

Things to Watch

Unlike NDR, GRR cannot exceed 100%. It tells you the absolute health of your base retention.
Benchmark: > 90% is excellent for SaaS.

Free-to-Paid Conversion

revenue

Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate

The percentage of free or trial users who successfully convert into paying customers.

Formula

(Number of Converted Paid Users / Total Free Users in Cohort) * 100

Things to Watch

Freemium Benchmark: Typically 2-5%.
Reverse Trial Benchmark: Often much higher (10-15%) since users experience premium value first.

Why this metric?

Thước đo đánh giá sự hiệu quả của mô hình Freemium/PLG, xem tính năng Free của bạn làm "phễu mồi" có kích thích đúng lúc để ép người dùng trả tiền (Hit Paywall) không. Hãy cẩn trọng: Nếu tỷ lệ này quá thấp (< 2%), tức là bản Free quá dễ dãi và rộng rãi, công ty sẽ nhanh chóng cạn kiệt dòng tiền vì cõng Server Costs.

Feature Adoption

engagement

Feature Adoption Rate

The percentage of active users who engage with a specific, newly launched feature.

Formula

(Number of Users Using Specific Feature / Total Active Users) * 100

Things to Watch

Crucial for avoiding the "Feature Factory" trap. If a feature is shipped but adoption is 0%, it created zero outcome.
Requires measuring active, intentional usage, not just accidental clicks.

Say/Do Ratio

general

Sprint Commitment Reliability (Say/Do)

The percentage of committed story points or tasks that the team successfully completed during a sprint cycle.

Formula

(Completed Story Points / Committed Story Points at Sprint Start) * 100

Things to Watch

Predictability > Speed: A stable 80-90% is much better than a chaotic 50-150%.
Watch out for scope creep: Do not include points added mid-sprint in the committed denominator.

Why this metric?

Vận tốc (Velocity) rất dễ làm giả bằng cách đánh điểm Point thật lớn. Tuy nhiên % hoàn thành dứt điểm mục tiêu (Say/Do) thì không thể lừa dối. Một team có Say/Do = 90% giúp toàn bộ tổ chức (Sales/Marketing) tự tin lên lịch Go-To-Market, trái lại team chạy nhanh nhưng hụt nhịp liên tục sẽ dẫn đến khung hoảng niềm tin (Trust) nội bộ.

Deployment Frequency

general

Deployment Frequency (DORA)

How often an organization successfully releases to production.

Formula

Count(Successful Deployments to Production in a Time Period)

Things to Watch

Elite performers deploy multiple times per day on demand.
Requires strong CI/CD pipelines and automated testing to avoid disruptions.

Why this metric?

Những tổ chức triển khai dự án kiểu cũ thường đợi 3-6 tháng mới nhả 1 đợt cập nhật (Big Bang Release). Việc này tiềm ẩn rủi ro rất lớn. Deployment Frequency càng cao chứng tỏ tính Automation (CI/CD) của hệ thống càng mạnh, PM có thể đưa bản vá lỗi tới khách hàng tính bằng đơn vị Giờ thay vì Tháng.

Lead Time

general

Lead Time for Changes (DORA)

The amount of time it takes a commit to get into production.

Formula

Average(Time of Deployment - Time of Commit)

Things to Watch

Measures the agility of the engineering pipeline.
Different from "Cycle Time" which tracks from when work is first started in Jira/Trello.

Why this metric?

Nếu Dev mất 1 ngày để code xong tính năng, nhưng qua luồng Testing Manual, Security Review và phê duyệt cực hình mất tới 14 ngày thì khách hàng sẽ chuyển sang xài app đối thủ. Chữ "Agile" thật sự nằm ở việc làm giảm Lead Time For Changes từ mức Tháng xuống mức Giờ.

Change Failure Rate

general

Change Failure Rate (DORA)

The percentage of deployments causing a failure in production that require immediate remediation (e.g., rollback, hotfix).

Formula

(Deployments Resulting in Failure / Total Deployments) * 100

Things to Watch

High deployment frequency is only good if CFR is low (typically 0-15%).
Measures quality and stability of the delivery process.

Defect Escape Rate

general

Defect Escape Rate

The ratio of bugs found in production versus bugs found during QA/testing phases.

Formula

(Bugs Found in Production / Total Bugs Found) * 100

Things to Watch

Effectiveness of QA: A high escape rate means your testing filters (Unit/E2E/Manual tests) are leaking excessively.
Not all bugs are equal - weight them by severity and priority for deeper analysis.