A KPI is a number you watch to know that something is healthy, so a good KPI example names the metric, how it is calculated, and the range it should stay in, like “monthly churn: customers lost ÷ customers at the start, kept under 3%.” Below are 24 KPI examples across eight parts of a small company, each with the point where it stops being a KPI and becomes a goal.
The ranges are examples sized for a company of five to fifty people, not industry benchmarks. Set yours from your own last three to six months: a range copied from someone else’s business tells you nothing about yours. For the difference between watching a number and moving one, see OKR vs KPI; for numbers you set out to change, see measurable goal examples →
A KPI and a goal can be the same number
The KPI
Keep monthly churn under 3%. Checked every month, no end date, and nobody gets a prize for holding it. It only gets attention when it breaks.
The goal
Cut monthly churn from 4.2% to 3% by the end of Q2. One quarter, one owner, a slot among this cycle’s priorities, and it is over when the date arrives.
The metric is identical; the job is not. Most of the confusion around KPIs comes from writing standards as if they were goals, which fills the goal list with numbers that are already fine, or writing goals as if they were standards, which gives them no deadline.
Telling a goal from a standing standard, which is what most companies call a KPI, is lesson 9 of our free course. lesson 9 of 17 in From Zero to Goals: Year and quarter: which is which. Sort what belongs to the year, what belongs to the quarter, and what is not a goal at all. You make the calls inside one realistic company, run the exercise on your own goals, and the course ends with a 15 question exam (12 to pass) and a certificate worth putting on your profile.
KPI examples for sales
Win rate: hold at 20–30%
Deals won ÷ deals closed (won plus lost) in the period. Becomes a goal when it stays under 18% for a full quarter.
Sales cycle length: 30–45 days
Median days from first meeting to signed deal, for deals closed this quarter. Becomes a goal when the median passes 60 days.
Pipeline coverage: 3x to 4x the target
Open qualified pipeline ÷ the revenue still to win this quarter. Becomes a goal when it falls under 2.5x with six weeks left.
KPI examples for marketing
Qualified leads: 40–60 a month
Leads that meet your agreed definition of qualified, counted once each. Becomes a goal when two months in a row come in under 30.
Cost per qualified lead: $80–150
Paid spend for the month ÷ qualified leads from paid channels. Becomes a goal when it climbs past $200 and stays there.
Lead-to-customer rate: 5–8%
New customers ÷ qualified leads from the same monthly cohort, read 60 days later. Becomes a goal when a cohort lands under 4%.
KPI examples for customer success and retention
Monthly customer churn: under 3%
Customers lost in the month ÷ customers at the start of it. Becomes a goal when it sits above 4% for two months running.
Net revenue retention: 100–110%
Revenue this month from customers you had a year ago ÷ their revenue a year ago, upgrades and losses included. Becomes a goal under 95%.
Onboarding completion: 70–85%
New accounts that finish setup within 14 days ÷ new accounts. Becomes a goal when a month’s cohort finishes under 60%.
KPI examples for support
First response time: under 4 business hours
Median time from a ticket arriving to the first human reply. Becomes a goal when the weekly median passes one business day.
Tickets older than 7 days: under 10
Open tickets with no resolution after a week, counted every Monday. Becomes a goal when the count doubles and does not come back down.
Customer satisfaction: 90% or higher
Satisfied ratings ÷ all ratings on resolved tickets. Becomes a goal when it drops under 85% on a sample of at least 50 ratings.
KPI examples for product
Activation rate: 30–40%
New sign-ups who complete the one action that predicts staying, within 7 days ÷ new sign-ups. Becomes a goal when it falls under 25%.
Weekly active accounts: 60–75% of paying
Paying accounts with real activity this week ÷ paying accounts. Becomes a goal when it slides under 50%, usually months before churn shows it.
Trial-to-paid conversion: 15–25%
Trials that convert ÷ trials that ended in the period. Becomes a goal when it drops under 12% for a full quarter.
KPI examples for engineering and delivery
Deployment frequency: several times a week
Production releases per week, one of the four DORA delivery metrics. Becomes a goal when a team goes two weeks without shipping.
Change failure rate: under 15%
Releases that cause an incident or a rollback ÷ all releases. Becomes a goal when one in four releases needs fixing.
Uptime: 99.9% or better
Minutes the product was available ÷ minutes in the month. Becomes a goal when a month lands under 99.5%, which is about 3.6 hours down.
KPI examples for finance
Gross margin: 70–80% for software
(Revenue minus the direct cost of delivering it) ÷ revenue. A services business runs lower. Becomes a goal when it drops five points in a quarter.
Cash runway: 12 months or more
Cash in the bank ÷ average monthly net burn over the last three months. Becomes a goal the month it reads under nine.
Days sales outstanding: under 45
Unpaid invoices ÷ revenue for the period, times the days in it. Becomes a goal when it passes 60 and cash starts arriving late.
KPI examples for people and operations
Regretted attrition: under 10% a year
People you wanted to keep who left in the last 12 months ÷ average headcount. Becomes a goal after two regretted exits in one quarter.
Time to fill a role: 30–45 days
Days from opening a role to an accepted offer. Becomes a goal when two roles in a row pass 60 days.
On-time delivery: 85–95%
Projects or orders delivered by the agreed date ÷ all delivered. Becomes a goal when it drops under 80% for a month.
How many KPIs a small team should watch
Five to eight for the whole company, two to four per team, and fewer is better. The test for each one is a single question: if this number left its range next week, would anyone do something different? If the honest answer is no, it belongs in a report, not on the list. Twenty-four examples on this page is a menu, not a target: a twelve-person company watching all of them would watch none.
KPIs that look useful and aren’t
Some numbers only ever go up, and that is exactly why they make bad KPIs. Total sign-ups since launch, page views, followers, tickets closed, hours logged, and emails sent all grow whether the business is healthy or not, so they cannot warn you of anything. Each has a better version: active accounts instead of total sign-ups, qualified leads instead of page views, tickets older than seven days instead of tickets closed. The same test shows up from the goal side in marketing goal examples →
Celorly is not a dashboard, and it does not try to hold your KPIs. It is where a KPI goes when it breaks: you turn it into a goal with the current number as the baseline and the range as the target, give it an owner and a deadline, and update it in seconds each week until it is back where it belongs. Free while it’s just you. See what Celorly does →
When a KPI should become a goal
A KPI that leaves its range is the most honest source of goals a small team has, because the number already proved it matters. Four steps keep that handover clean:
Write the range down before you need it
Pick the band from your own last three to six months and agree on it while nothing is on fire. A range set after a bad month is a reaction, not a standard.
Read it on a fixed schedule
Weekly for anything that moves fast, monthly for the rest. A KPI checked only when someone remembers is how a drift becomes a quarter-long problem.
Agree on the trigger, not just the range
One bad week is noise. Decide in advance what counts as a real break: two readings in a row outside the band is a good default.
When it breaks, turn it into a goal for one cycle
Write it from the current number to a target by a date, give it an owner, and give it a slot among this quarter’s goals. When it is back in range, it goes back to being a KPI.
Written as an OKR, the broken KPI usually becomes a key result rather than the objective: see how to write OKRs and, at the end of the cycle, how to score it →
KPI examples: quick answers
What is an example of a KPI?+
“Monthly customer churn: customers lost in the month divided by customers at the start of it, kept under 3%.” A complete KPI names the metric, how it is calculated, and the range it should stay in.
What are the five most important KPIs for a small business?+
A reasonable starting five: revenue growth, gross margin, cash runway, customer churn, and one early signal of new demand such as qualified leads per month. Swap any of them for something your business would actually act on.
How many KPIs should a small team track?+
Five to eight for the whole company and two to four per team. If nobody would do anything differently when a number moves, it is a report, not a KPI.
What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?+
Every KPI is a metric, but most metrics are not KPIs. A metric becomes a KPI when it has an agreed healthy range and someone is expected to act when it leaves that range.
What are leading and lagging KPIs?+
A lagging KPI reports a result after the fact, like revenue or churn. A leading KPI moves earlier and predicts it, like weekly active accounts or qualified leads. Watch at least one leading KPI for every lagging one, or you only find out when it is too late to change.
Is a KPI the same as a goal?+
No. A KPI is a standard you hold, with no end date; a goal is a change you make by a deadline. The same number can be either: churn under 3% is a KPI, cutting churn from 4.2% to 3% by the end of Q2 is a goal.