Achieving operational maturity relies heavily on data. Decisions based on data, rather than emotion or chance, tend to result in higher profitability, increased productivity, and a more efficient organization.
Managed service providers (MSPs) who grow successfully and sustainably know their numbers. They set outcomes-based goals, track and analyze their metrics consistently, and make adjustments based on what the data says.
There are dozens of key performance indicators (KPIs) that can impact your business. In this blog, we’ll share ten KPIs to start tracking this quarter to make a positive impact on client experience, financial health, and your talent pool. Plus, we’ll give you benchmarks to measure yourself against and give you advice if your numbers aren’t where you’d like them to be.
1. SLA Adherence
This KPI measures how consistently your team is meeting service level agreements (SLAs), and it’s an important factor in building trust. When you onboard a new client, an SLA sets expectations around ticket response and resolution times, and overall service quality. Breaching or failing to meet expectations set forth in an SLA signals to your client that you are not reliable, can’t deliver on what you promised, and that investing in your services may not be worthwhile.
To calculate SLA adherence, divide the number of tickets resolved within your SLA by your total number of tickets in that period, then multiply by 100. So if 300 of your 400 tickets were resolved within your SLA last month, your SLA adherence would be 75%.
SLA ADHERENCE: (300 tickets closed on time ➗400 total tickets) x 100 = 75%
MSPs should aim for 100% SLA adherence at any given time, with best-in-class MSPs consistently staying above 95%. Anything lower suggests gaps in your process.
If your numbers aren’t where you want them to be, dig into your ticket process or your staffing. How are you prioritizing ticket requests? Are you documenting how to resolve repetitive issues? Or better yet, using automation to resolve those issues? Are your techs overloaded and can workloads be rebalanced?
SLA adherence matters because it’s a direct reflection of your MSP’s reliability. Consistently hitting your SLAs leads to higher client satisfaction (clients won’t notice that their tickets are sitting around unresolved), which in turn positions you as a trusted partner, not just another vendor.
2. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customer satisfaction, or CSAT, is a metric that measures your client’s perception of the service you deliver. It is essentially how they rate their experience with you. CSAT scores are generally collected via surveys that are sent to clients after tickets have been closed and should be quick and easy to answer. It might be as simple as asking, “How happy are you with how long it took to resolve this ticket and with the response you were provided?” Often, clients can answer by clicking a happy face emoji, a neutral face emoji, or a sad face emoji.
To calculate your CSAT score, take your total number of positive survey responses and divide that by your total number of survey responses in a given period. Then, multiply by 100 to get your percentage. If you got 85 positive responses out of 100 surveys completed, your CSAT score would be 85%.
CSAT: (85 positive survey responses ➗100 survey responses) x 100 = 85%
When it comes to CSAT, the higher your score, the better. MSPs should aim for at least 75%, with best-in-class MSPs reaching 90% and above.
Why are CSAT scores so important? Well, happy customers will refer you to their peers, colleagues, friends, and more. And, happy customers are long-term customers. Referrals and high retention rates can make a huge impact on your profitability and your potential to scale.
What if your CSAT scores are too low? Turn to your customers. Ask them for feedback, check in with them regularly, and have honest and transparent conversations. Use that feedback to train your techs and coach them on their people skills. If you can, keep your running CSAT score on display at your service desk to motivate your techs and keep the customer experience top of mind.
3. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
MRR may be the most important metric for any MSP. It measures predictable, ongoing, contract-based revenue. It is everything to an MSP because it can signal a stable and growing managed services practice and it should be where the bulk of an MSP’s revenue is generated.
Calculate MRR by adding up all recurring revenue for a given period, such as subscriptions, contracts, and managed services fees
Ideally, MRR should grow from month to month and should account for a majority of an MSP’s revenue. Because it is a consistent and predictable income stream, MRR helps MSPs forecast and budget for future cash flows and makes your MSP less vulnerable to market fluctuations.
If you want to grow your MRR, take a look at your clients and see where there’s an opportunity to upsell. Shift any break-fix clients into managed contracts, consider bundling services into tiered packages, and modernize your offerings to meet market demands. MSPs who have reached operational maturity prioritize MRR and see it as their foundation for growth.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
This is an important business and operations KPI that measures the total revenue you can expect from a client over the course of the relationship. CLTV is the total value of a relationship and can help indicate when you should adjust your pricing and client acquisition strategies. MSPs who know what their clients are worth can make more informed business decisions that affect profitability.
Calculating CLTV can be done in a couple of different ways. A quick way to understand a client’s value is to subtract the cost of acquiring a customer from the revenue that customer brings in.
Customer Lifetime Value = Revenue from Customer - Cost of Acquisition
You always want your CLTV to significantly exceed your customer acquisition cost. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to improve marketing, sales, and retention strategies.
A more involved way to calculate CLTV is to understand your average revenue per client and multiply it by average retention time. If on average, each customer brings in $100,000 in revenue per year and you retain each customer for 5 years, then your CTLV is $500,000.
If you want to increase your CLTV, focus on retention. Improve the onboarding experience, foster a relationship built on trust and communication through consistent QBRs, upsell clients when possible, and revisit your pricing strategies to align with the value you bring and modern demands.
5. Cost per Lead (CPL)
Marketing and sales are critical functions in any MSP and it’s important to tie KPIs to these departments to understand if your marketing tactics are paying off. A popular KPI is cost per lead (CPL) which measures your marketing team’s efficiency in generating qualified leads.
To calculate what it costs you to generate a lead, take your total marketing spend and divide it by the number of leads you’ve generated. So, if you spend $100,000 on marketing efforts and generate 500 leads, your CPL is $200.
Cost per Lead: $100,000 marketing spend ➗500 leads generated = $200 per lead
Your ideal cost per lead will vary depending on the industries you serve, your marketing budget, your marketing tactics, your annual revenue, your pricing, and so on. Research suggests that marketing qualified leads can cost MSPs anywhere from $100-300 each.
Knowing your CPL can help you budget smarter and understand what your ROI is for each of your marketing campaigns. It should be noted that pairing CPL with conversion rates can give you a deeper understanding of what your marketing dollars are doing. If you know what it costs to get a qualified lead and you understand your average conversion rate, you can get more granular about your marketing campaign budget and goals.
To bring CPL down, target high-value customer segments, spend more on channels that drive more conversions, refine your messaging and your website, and focus sales efforts on tactics that work best for your MSP.
6. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is a marketing and sales KPI that shows how effectively you’re turning website visitors, leads, or prospects into paying customers. It helps you measure the health of your sales funnel and the ROI of your marketing efforts.
To calculate conversion rate, take the number of people who completed a desired action (such as booking a demo, filling out a form, or signing a contract) and divide it by the total number of people who had the opportunity. Multiply by 100 for the percentage. If you had 50 conversions out of 1,000 visitors last quarter, your conversion rate would be 5%.
Conversion Rate: (50 conversions ➗1,000 visitors) x 100 = 5%
Across B2B services, conversion rates vary widely, but MSPs should aim for at least 2–5% from their website, landing pages, and ad campaigns.
If your numbers aren’t where you’d like them, it’s time to evaluate both your marketing and sales process. Is your website optimized for conversions with clear calls to action and messaging that resonates? Are you nurturing leads effectively with personalized outreach? And once they’re engaged, does your sales process move them quickly and confidently toward a decision? Small tweaks, such as simplifying forms or aligning sales scripts to buyer pain points, can make a big difference.
7. Cost per Hire
Recruiting and onboarding new employees can be expensive and tracking cost per hire can give useful insights to improve your talent acquisition process. Cost per hire adds up the total recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and training costs, then divides that by the number of hires made.
For example, if you spent $60,000 in a year on recruiting efforts and brought on 12 new employees, your cost per hire would be $5,000
Cost per Hire: $60,000 recruiting spend ➗12 hires = $5,000 per hire
Benchmarks vary by industry and role, but the average cost per hire across professional services is often between $4,000 and $7,000. For technical roles, it can climb even higher.
High costs may signal inefficiencies in your recruiting process. Are you spending heavily on job boards that aren’t delivering? Are you leaning too much on outside recruiters instead of leveraging referrals or in-house HR processes? To bring costs down, standardize your hiring process, create a positive onboarding experience, and invest in your talent pool to drive retention and reduce hiring frequency.
8. Employee Turnover Rate
MSPs should not neglect HR-related KPIs, as they can reveal opportunities to improve internal processes and bring down costs. One such KPI is employee turnover rate, which measures how often employees voluntarily or involuntarily leave your company. High turnover creates instability, drives up recruiting costs, and impacts service delivery.
To calculate turnover rate, take the number of employees who left during a period, divide by the average number of employees, and multiply by 100. If you had 5 employees leave out of an average staff of 50 last year, your turnover rate would be 10%.
Employee Turnover Rate: (5 employees left ➗50 average employees) x 100 = 10%
For MSPs, a turnover rate below 15% is considered healthy. Anything higher may indicate cultural issues, burnout, or lack of career development opportunities.
If turnover is high, the first step is to dig into why. Exit interviews, engagement surveys, and regular check-ins can reveal root causes. Are your techs overwhelmed by ticket noise? Are managers providing enough coaching? Are there clear paths for advancement? Retaining talent takes more than offering competitive pay. Focus on creating a culture where employees feel supported, valued, and able to grow.
9. Tickets per Endpoint
This is a basic, yet critical KPI that should be top of mind at every service desk. It measures how noisy the devices you manage are and can shine a light on efficiency gaps and opportunities to streamline your service environment
To calculate, divide the total number of tickets by the number of endpoints you’re managing. If you had 1,000 tickets across 500 endpoints last month, your tickets per endpoint would be 2.
Tickets per Endpoint: 1,000 tickets ➗500 endpoints = 2 tickets per endpoint
Benchmarks vary, but many mature MSPs aim for fewer than 1 ticket per endpoint per month. High noise often signals misconfigured devices, ineffective onboarding, or the wrong types of clients.
Are your tickets per endpoint too high? Take this opportunity to audit your clients, your technicians, and your technology. Are clients following best practices, or do you need to provide better onboarding and education? Are the same issues being logged repeatedly? If so, can they be automated or documented for faster resolution? Reducing ticket noise can increase client satisfaction and free up your techs so they can focus on revenue-generating work
10. Churn Rate
Another bread-and-butter KPI for any business owner, churn rate measures the percentage of clients lost over time. Most business leaders keep a close eye on this number, as a high churn rate can indicate an unstable organization, an ineffective pricing model, outdated service offerings, and a disconnect in client communications. Even low churn can have a significant impact on long-term profitability.
To calculate churn rate, divide your number of clients lost in a given period by the total number of clients at the start of the same period and then multiply by 100. If you started a year with 100 clients and lost 5 of them in that time period, your churn rate would be 5%.
Churn Rate: (5 clients lost ➗100 total clients) x 100 = 5%
The most successful MSPs aim to keep their churn rate below 5% and they do this by placing a strong emphasis on fostering healthy client relationships.
If you’re looking to reduce churn, try to identify patterns in who is leaving. Is it mainly small, unprofitable clients? If so, you may need to adjust who you’re targeting. Do churns regularly cite issues with support? If so, look at your ticket triaging or your customer success strategies. Talk to clients often, prioritize QBRs, improve onboarding, modernize your service offerings and your tech stack, and keep investing in long-term retention strategies.
Measure what matters on your road to operational maturity
If your goal is to grow and scale your MSP, you need visibility into the health of your service delivery, financial performance, marketing strategies, and employee engagement. Next quarter, commit to measuring these ten performance metrics & KPIs consistently to get in the habit of operating as a data-driven MSP. You’ll spot problems before they escalate, create efficiencies where they were previously lacking, increase productivity, and put your MSP on the path to operational maturity.
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