100+ examples of KPIs and success metrics for every business and function

In the modern era of outcome-driven teams it's becoming crucial for organisations to understand how to best measure their success. This is true at a company level, but it's also something that every function in a company must master.

The challenge is that you can't just apply the same set of KPIs to every business and every team. You'll need to figure out the metrics that are the best proxy for understanding the health of your system.

For instance, you can't measure success for a mobile app using the same metrics that you'd apply to a B2B platform. Similarly, the top metrics that an Engineering team will track are going to be quite different from the top metrics that a Marketing team will care about.

A final word of caution: you'll be wise to think about pairing your KPIs to avoid the rippling effect of Goodhart's Law.

This post is here to give you a head start with the best 100+ KPIs for every business and function.

What are KPIs?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that organisations use to evaluate and monitor performance. KPIs are selected based on their relevance for the specific business or function they represent, and each KPI represents a specific aspect of performance that is critical to success.

A good set of KPIs should help you answer the question, "Is <business or function> going well?". A KPI doesn't drive strategy directly, but you can attach goals to them by using OKRs (see KPIs vs. OKRs), or you can set a simple set of targets to achieve every quarter.

KPIs act more as an alarm that gets triggered when performance has degraded below a certain point. This is when teams must halt their work (towards OKRs, goals, or roadmap) to fix whatever broke.

A bad KPI is a metric that you won't act on. For instance, a Customer Support team won't care about the number of blog page views suddenly dropping. Don't track metrics that won't affect your behaviour.

What are the benefits of using KPIs and success metrics?

1. Performance and health monitoring

KPIs provide a structured approach to measure and evaluate performance across different areas of the organisation. They offer a clear and objective way to track their performance over time.

2. Goal definition and focus

Having a clear set of KPIs and success metrics makes it easy to define goals. You can look at the metrics that you want to impact in any specific quarter and set clear expectations for your teams.

3. Data-Driven Decision Making:

Tracking how your success metrics evolve over time is a great way to not only reduce gut feel but also to improve the quality of decisions. Organisations can start tracking the seasonality of their business, identifying trends, and understanding the correlation between different activities. As they get more experience and refine their KPIs, businesses will gain insights into the factors that have a great influence on their bottom line (and identify new opportunities).

4. Accountability and transparency

Having a set of KPIs will bring transparency to how an organisation and its different teams are performing. This will increase the sense of ownership and urgency as it will be easy to see the impact of the work done.

You can also pair KPIs with OKRs to increase the sense of ownership by the teams, as they'll be able to decide every quarter what improvements they want to focus on.

Examples of top KPIs and success metrics

You'll find below a couple of spreadsheets with all the KPIs, and different examples of business and functions and their corresponding top 10 KPIs.

Free spreadsheets with 800+ KPIs

We have compiled 2 spreadsheets that contains the top 20 KPIs for more than 40 types of businesses and function. That's 800+ KPIs that have been categorised for you, giving you a headstart to create your dashboards.

On top of that, we've included a series of SaaS tool that you can use to gather data for each KPI.

• KPIs for every type of business
• KPIs organised by function
  

Top Startups KPIs

1. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): The predictable and recurring revenue generated each month
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): The total value a customer brings over their entire lifespan
4. Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using the product or service
5. Burn Rate: The rate at which the startup is spending its available funds
6. Runway: The estimated time until the startup runs out of funds
7. Active Users: The number of active users or customers
8. Conversion Rate: The percentage of website visitors or leads that convert
9. Monthly Active Users (MAU): The number of unique users who engage with the product monthly
10. Average Revenue per User (ARPU): The average revenue generated per user or customer

Top SaaS KPIs

1. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): The predictable and recurring revenue generated each month
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): The total value a customer brings over their entire lifespan
4. Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using the product or service
5. Net Promoter Score (NPS): A measure of customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend
6. Monthly Active Users (MAU): The number of unique users who engage with the product monthly
7. Average Revenue per User (ARPU): The average revenue generated per user or customer
8. Expansion Revenue: The additional revenue generated from upsells or cross-sells
9. Funnel Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who move through different stages of the funnel
10. Customer Retention Rate: The percentage of customers retained over a specific period

Top B2B KPIs

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The predicted revenue a customer generates over their lifetime
3. Churn Rate: The rate at which customers stop using your product or service
4. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): The predictable and recurring revenue generated from subscription-based services
5. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): The average revenue generated per customer or user
6. Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads or website visitors that convert into paying customers
7. Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads that convert into paying customers
8. Customer Retention Rate: The rate at which customers continue to stay and renew their subscriptions
9. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): A metric that measures customer satisfaction and happiness with your product or service
10. Net Promoter Score (NPS): A measure of customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend your product or service

Top B2C KPIs

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The predicted revenue a customer generates over their lifetime
3. Churn Rate: The rate at which customers stop using your product or service
4. Average Order Value (AOV): The average value of each customer's purchase
5. Conversion Rate: The percentage of website visitors that convert into paying customers
6. Repeat Purchase Rate: The percentage of customers who make more than one purchase
7. Customer Retention Rate: The rate at which customers continue to stay and make repeat purchases
8. Cart Abandonment Rate: The percentage of customers who add items to their cart but do not complete the purchase
9. Net Promoter Score (NPS): A measure of customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend your product or service
10. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): The average revenue generated per customer or user

Top E-commerce KPIs

1. Conversion Rate: The percentage of website visitors that convert into paying customers
2. Average Order Value (AOV): The average value of each customer's purchase
3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The predicted revenue a customer generates over their lifetime
5. Repeat Purchase Rate: The percentage of customers who make more than one purchase
6. Cart Abandonment Rate: The percentage of customers who add items to their cart but do not complete the purchase
7. Churn Rate: The rate at which customers stop purchasing from your e-commerce store
8. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): The average revenue generated per customer or user
9. Customer Retention Rate: The rate at which customers continue to make repeat purchases
10. Gross Profit Margin: The percentage of revenue that remains after deducting the cost of goods sold

Top Leadership KPIs

1. Revenue: The total revenue generated by the business
2. Gross Profit Margin: The percentage of revenue remaining after deducting the cost of goods sold
3. Net Profit Margin: The percentage of revenue remaining after deducting all expenses, including taxes
4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost incurred to acquire a new customer
5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The predicted revenue generated by a customer throughout their relationship with the business
6. Customer Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using or leave the business
7. Customer Satisfaction: A metric that measures customer satisfaction with the business's products or services
8. Employee Satisfaction: A metric that measures employee satisfaction and happiness within the business
9. Employee Turnover Rate: The percentage of employees who leave the business within a specific period
10. Return on Investment (ROI): The return on investment as a percentage, indicating the profitability of an investment

Top Sales KPIs

1. Revenue: The total revenue generated from sales
2. Sales Growth Rate: The rate at which sales revenue has grown over a specific period
3. Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads or prospects that convert into customers
4. Average Deal Size: The average value or amount of each closed deal
5. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost incurred to acquire a new customer
6. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The predicted revenue generated by a customer throughout their relationship with the company
7. Win Rate: The percentage of opportunities or deals won compared to the total number of opportunities
8. Sales Pipeline Value: The total value of all opportunities in the sales pipeline
9. Sales Cycle Length: The average time it takes to close a deal or complete a sales cycle
10. Sales Velocity: The speed at which leads or opportunities move through the sales pipeline

Top Product KPIs

1. Customer Satisfaction: A metric that measures customer satisfaction with the product or feature
2. Time to Market: The time it takes to bring a new product or feature to market
3. Product Adoption Rate: The rate at which customers adopt and start using a new product or feature
4. Feature Usage: The usage and engagement metrics of specific product features
5. Customer Retention Rate: The percentage of customers who continue to use the product or renew their subscriptions
6. Net Promoter Score (NPS): A metric that measures customer loyalty and willingness to recommend the product
7. Churn Rate: The percentage of customers or revenue lost over a specific period
8. Revenue from New Products: The revenue generated from new products or features
9. Product Development Cost: The cost incurred in developing and launching new products or features
10. Return on Investment (ROI): The return on investment as a percentage, indicating the profitability of a product

Top Marketing KPIs

1. Return on Investment (ROI): The financial return generated from marketing efforts compared to the cost of investment
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost required to acquire a new customer
3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): The total value a customer brings to the business over their entire lifetime
4. Conversion Rate: The percentage of website visitors or leads that convert into customers
5. Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads that convert into paying customers
6. Customer Retention Rate: The percentage of customers who continue to use the product or service
7. Churn Rate: The rate at which customers stop using or cancel their subscription
8. Website Traffic: The number of visitors to the website
9. Organic Search Traffic: The number of visitors coming to the website through organic search results
10. Email Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open marketing emails

Top Customer Support KPIs

1. First Response Time: The average time it takes to respond to a customer's initial support request
2. Average Resolution Time: The average time it takes to resolve a customer support ticket
3. Customer Satisfaction: A metric that measures the satisfaction of customers with the support received
4. First Contact Resolution Rate: The rate at which support issues are resolved during the first contact with the customer
5. Ticket Backlog: The number of unresolved support tickets in the backlog
6. Customer Effort Score (CES): A metric that measures the effort required by customers to accomplish tasks or actions
7. Ticket Volume: The total number of support tickets received within a specific timeframe
8. Average Response Time: The average time it takes to respond to customer support requests
9. Customer Retention Rate: The percentage of customers who continue to use the product or service over time
10. Ticket Resolution Rate: The rate at which support tickets are resolved or closed

Tracking your KPIs and success metrics effectively

It's one thing to have a set of KPIs, and it's another to keep an eye on them. The first thing you should do is create a spreadsheet to track the monthly progression of your top metrics. That spreadsheet should remain simple. I'd suggest keeping track of both the value of your KPI and the monthly variance.

Then, you can get more sophisticated for your quarterly goals – that is, when you want to move the baseline of your KPIs and success metrics to another level. A goal-setting framework like OKRs is a perfect tool to do so, and in this case, you'll want to use a goal-tracking platform like Tability to connect outcomes to outputs and have a more granular view of progress.

More resources

• Check out our success metrics library
• Learn more about the meaning of OKRs
• See why weekly check-ins matter

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