Agency KPIs That Actually Matter
Most agencies track too many metrics and act on too few. Here are the 12 that matter, by frequency.
Weekly metrics (5)
1. New leads (top of funnel)
- Inbound from website / audit funnel
- Outbound conversations started
- Referral introductions
Track on a single dashboard. If this number drops to zero for 2 weeks, you have a pipeline problem.
2. Qualified opportunities (stage 2-3)
- Discovery call held
- Proposal sent
This number drives pipeline 60-90 days out.
3. Closed deals
- New retainers closed
- Project commitments
4. Cash collected
Not invoices sent. Cash actually in the bank.
5. Team utilization
Productive billable hours / total available hours. Healthy: 65-75%.
Monthly metrics (4)
6. MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
The single most important number for retainer-based agencies.
7. Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
For your existing client base, what % of last month's revenue is this month's revenue?
- 100%+ = clients are growing with you
- 90-100% = healthy
- Below 90% = churn problem
8. Gross Margin
Revenue minus direct delivery cost. Target: 50-65% for most services.
9. Cash runway (in months)
Cash on hand / monthly burn. Always know this number.
Quarterly metrics (3)
10. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Average MRR × average client tenure (in months). Tells you what one closed deal is actually worth.
11. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Total sales + marketing spend / new clients closed. Including your time at a fully-loaded rate.
12. CLV:CAC Ratio
Should be 3:1 minimum. 5:1 is healthy. Below 2:1 you're losing money on growth.
Metrics NOT to track obsessively
❌ Vanity metrics — Twitter followers, blog traffic (unless directly tied to leads) ❌ Time-tracking minutiae — bill at fixed-fee, not hourly, and stop tracking 6-min increments ❌ Lead scoring — agency deal volume is too low for sophisticated scoring ❌ NPS — unless you have 50+ active clients, sample size is too small
How to build the dashboard
Use one tool. Notion, Google Sheets, Airtable — doesn't matter. Just one.
Update cadence:
- Weekly metrics: every Monday morning
- Monthly metrics: 5th of every month
- Quarterly metrics: 15th of first month of each quarter
The single most-skipped metric
Cash collected vs. cash invoiced.
Many agencies show "we did $X in revenue" — but $20K is in 90+ day AR.
Real revenue is collected revenue. Track this.
The "bad month" check
When a month is bad, ask:
- Did new leads drop? → Top-of-funnel problem
- Did conversion drop? → Mid-funnel / pricing problem
- Did clients churn? → Delivery / fit problem
- Did utilization drop? → Capacity / pricing problem
Each diagnosis points to a different fix.
The math at $1M ARR
Healthy $1M ARR agency:
- 12-15 retained clients ($5-7K MRR average)
- 4-5 new clients/year (50% replacement + growth)
- $80K trailing 90-day cash
- 65% gross margin
- 70% utilization
- 3.5:1 CLV:CAC
If two of those numbers are off, it's a phase. If five are off, it's a structural problem.
Track proposal pipeline in AgencyPitch — every proposal sent is tracked, with open/view analytics. Gives you weekly metrics 1 + 2 automatically.