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?

Description of KPIs: KPIs are a set of metrics used for monitoring performance

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.

KPIs help you maintain confidence in your system

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.

Top Startups KPIs

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

Top SaaS KPIs

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

Top B2B KPIs

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

Top B2C KPIs

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

Top E-commerce KPIs

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

Top Leadership KPIs

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

Top Sales KPIs

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

Top Marketing KPIs

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

Top Customer Support KPIs

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

Tracking your KPIs and success metrics effectively

Tability can help you track OKRs and KPIs

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.

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