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The Ultimate List of Product Metrics
Product Metrics
Category
Name
Description
Abbreviation
Formula
More Details
Acquisition
9
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing just one page. A high bounce rate may indicate issues with the landing page (e.g., messaging) or targeting.
Open
Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who take a desired action, like signing up for a newsletter.
Open
Landing Page Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors who take a desired action on a specific landing page, like signing up or starting a trial, on a specific landing page.
Open
Customer Acquisition Cost
The cost of acquiring a new customer through marketing and sales efforts.
CAC
Open
Cost Per Acquisition
Similar to CAC, but can encompass costs for acquiring any desired action, not just paying customers.
CPA
Open
Channel Effectiveness
The success of each acquisition channel in driving traffic, sign-ups, or purchases.
Open
Traffic Source Distribution
The breakdown of incoming user traffic by different sources, such as organic search, referrals, or paid ads.
Open
Cost Per Click
The cost for each click on your ads. Helps in understanding the cost effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.
CPC
Open
Click-Through Rate
The percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it. A higher CTR indicates more effective ads.
CTR
Open
Activation
7
Time to Value
The time it takes for a user to experience the core benefits of your product after starting to use it.
A shorter TTV leads to higher user satisfaction, engagement, and retention. In product-led growth, optimizing TTV is crucial to ensure users quickly understand the value your product delivers.
TTV
Open
Onboarding Completion Rate
The percentage of users who complete the onboarding process successfully.
Open
User Activation Rate
The percentage of users who successfully complete a certain milestone in your onboarding process.
Open
Trial-to-Paid Conversation Rate
The percentage of trial users who convert into paying customers.
Open
First-Time User Conversion Rate
The percentage of first-time users who complete a desired action, such as creating an account or purchasing. This metric helps assess the effectiveness of the onboarding process.
Open
Product Qualified Leads
Individuals within your user base who have shown strong intent to purchase, often through specific product usage patterns.
PQL
Open
Product Qualified Accounts
Entire accounts (especially relevant in B2B contexts) where multiple users within the same organization have collectively shown buying intent through product engagement.
Open
Retention
7
Churn Rate
The percentage of users who stop using the product within a specific time period, e.g., monthly.
Open
User Retention Rate
The percentage of users who continue using the product after a specific time period. Often monthly.
Open
Cohort Retention Analysis
User Retention Rate analyzed across different user cohorts (e.g., sign-up month). Helps in understanding retention patterns over time.
Open
User Renewal Rate
The percentage of users who renew their subscription or continue using the product after their initial contract period.
Open
Customer Lifetime
The average time it takes for a user to stop using the product.
Open
Customer Health Score
A composite metric that combines multiple indicators, such as usage, satisfaction, and support interactions, to provide an overall assessment of the customer's relationship with the product.
Open
Product Adoption Rate
The percentage of users who adopt new features or functionality within a certain time frame after release.
Open
Revenue
10
Average Revenue Per Account
The average revenue generated per account (customer) within a specific time frame. For example, monthly.
ARPA
Open
Customer Lifetime Value
The total revenue a user generates during their entire relationship with the product.
CLV, LTV
Open
Customer Profitability
The difference between the lifetime value of a customer (LTV) and the cost of acquiring them (CAC). Sometimes measured as LTV/CAC.
Open
Monthly Recurring Revenue
The predictable revenue generated by a subscription-based product every month.
MRR
Open
Annual Recurring Revenue
The annualized value of your MRR. Important for understanding long-term revenue projections.
ARR
Open
Expansion Revenue
Additional revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or add-on purchases.
Open
Average Contract Value
The average revenue generated from each customer contract, which can help assess the effectiveness of pricing and packaging strategies.
ACV
Open
Gross Margin
The difference between revenue and the cost of goods sold (materials, labor, distribution, sales). Indicates the profitability of your product
Open
Net Revenue Churn
The revenue lost due to customer cancellations, downgrades, or non-renewals within a specific time period, typically a month/year.
Open
Net Revenue Retention
The cumulative sum of retained, contracted, and expanded revenue over a specific period, typically a month/year.
NRR
Open
Referral
4
Virality
The number of new users acquired through referrals by existing users. Often expressed as a ratio (<1, 1, >1)
Open
Customer Referral Rate
The percentage of customers who refer others to the product.
Open
Referral Conversion Rate
The percentage of referrals that convert into active users.
Open
Net Promoter Score
A measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty based on how likely users are to recommend the product to others.
NPS
Open
Engagement
10
Daily Active Users
The number of unique users who engage with the product daily.
DAU
Open
Monthly Active Users
The number of unique users who engage with the product monthly.
MAU
Open
Stickiness
The ratio of daily active users (DAU) to monthly active users (MAU), which indicates how often users engage with the product.
Open
User Satisfaction
A measure of how satisfied users are with the product, often determined through surveys or in-app feedback (e.g., Pendo, Gainsight).
CSAT
Open
Session Length
The duration of a user's interaction with the product during a single session.
Open
Session Frequency
The average number of sessions per user within a specific time frame.
Open
Feature Usage
The frequency and depth of usage for specific product features.
Open
Customer Effort Score
Measures the ease with which customers can interact with your product or service. It is often determined by asking users to rate the effort required to accomplish a task or resolve an issue on a scale from very low to very high effort.
CES
Open
Task Success Rate
The percentage of users who successfully complete a specific task or set of tasks within your product. This metric helps assess the usability and effectiveness of your product's features.
Open
User Feedback Score
A quantitative measure of user satisfaction gathered through surveys, ratings, or reviews.
Open
Agile and Lean
8
Lead Time
Lead Time is a Kanban metric that measures the total time between an idea placed in a Product Backlog until the work in a specific process is completed.
For example, if Microsoft decides to use ChatGTP in Bing, Lead Time would be the time between deciding on a specific approach and when the feature is production-ready.
Open
TIme to Market
Time to Market (TTM) is a broader concept. I'd argue it's the most important metric for a PM, encompassing idea generation, experimentation, product delivery, and pre-launch activities that might be required before an idea is shipped.
TTM
Open
Cycle Time
Cycle Time is a Kanban metric that is a component of Lead Time. It measures the time it takes from when the implementation of an idea begins until it's done.
For example, if Microsoft decides to incorporate ChatGPT into Bing, the Cycle Time would be the period between when developers start implementing a specific idea and when it becomes production-ready.
Open
Work In Progress
WIP is a Kanban metric that represents the number of ideas that your team is currently working on.
WIP
Open
Throughput
The rate at which ideas pass through your team's workflow over a given period.
It’s essential to know Little’s Law, which can be expressed as:
Open
Time to Learn
The Time to Learn indicates how long it takes to learn. It can be measured for both experiments and shipping product features.
TTL
Open
Work Item Age
The total elapsed time between when work on an idea started (“in progress”) and the current time.
Open
Velocity
Refers to the amount of work, e.g., Story Points, completed by a team during an iteration, typically Sprint.
Open
8. Final Notes
This classification I presented is based primarily on the AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral) framework, which is universal and fits every organization that works on customer-facing tech products.
In AARRR, Engagement Metrics can be considered part of the Retention, and sometimes, depending on the context, Activation (e.g., Session Length). I presented them as a separate category to emphasize the distinct metrics focusing on user interaction with the product.
Lean and Agile Metrics are related to the effectiveness of delivering value. Many of them, like Time To Market (TTM), are essential to succeed by quickly adapting to the changing market conditions. I presented them as a separate category.
While those are the more common metrics, it’s essential to remember that none list is final. You might also formulate your custom metrics depending on the context and your specific situation.
In any case, tracking everything is impossible. To succeed, focus on just a few key metrics.
How to do that? You can read more here (free):
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