As a SaaS founder, you’re drowning in data. You have dashboards for ARR, sign-ups, churn, and a dozen other metrics. Yet, most of these are lagging indicators; they tell you the results of last quarter's strategy. To win in today's market, you need to measure the leading indicators of growth. You need to know your readiness to scale, right now.
After advising dozens of SaaS companies on the shift to Product-Led Growth, we’ve found that true readiness can be distilled into a single, actionable metric: a PLG Velocity Score™.
This isn't just another number. It's a quantitative measure of your organization's ability to generate scalable, capital-efficient growth. It’s built on four pillars, each with a handful of critical metrics that separate healthy PLG engines from those running on fumes. Here’s how to measure them.
Pillar 1: Product-Led Readiness
This measures how effectively your product functions as its own GTM engine.
- Time-to-Value (TTV): The clock starts at sign-up and stops the moment your user experiences the core promise of your product (the "aha!" moment). A world-class TTV is measured in minutes, not hours or days. If you can't measure this, you can't optimize your single most important funnel.
- Activation Rate: The percentage of new users who reach that "aha!" moment. This is your true "top of funnel" metric, not sign-ups. A high sign-up rate with a low activation rate is a leaky bucket, burning cash and brand reputation.
- Self-Serve Conversion Rate: The percentage of activated free users who become paying customers without ever speaking to a human. This is the ultimate measure of your product's ability to sell itself.
Pillar 2: Data Infrastructure Maturity
Your ability to execute is directly proportional to the quality and accessibility of your user data.
- Event Tracking Coverage: What percentage of meaningful user actions within your product are you actually tracking as events? If this number is below 80%, you are flying blind.
- PQL (Product-Qualified Lead) Definition: A PQL isn't a vague concept; it's a specific, data-driven definition of a user or account whose behavior indicates a strong likelihood to buy (e.g., invited 3 teammates AND used feature X five times). If you don't have a clear, written definition, you don't have a PQL model.
Pillar 3: Team & Culture Competency
The most sophisticated product will fail if the human element is misaligned.
- Cross-Functional Team Structure: Do you have dedicated, cross-functional teams (like our PODS Model) who own metrics like "Activation Rate," or are your teams still siloed by function (Marketing, Product, Sales)? Silos are where PLG strategies go to die.
- Incentive Alignment: Look at your marketing team's compensation plan. Are they bonused on generating "Marketing Qualified Leads" (MQLs) or on generating Activated Users? The answer to this single question reveals your true GTM priorities.
Pillar 4: Market & Commercial Viability
This pillar ensures your PLG ambitions are grounded in commercial reality.
- GTM Model Alignment: As we outline in our GTM-Fit Matrix, a high-ACV, high-complexity product selling to the enterprise has a different growth motion than a simple, low-ACV tool. What percentage of your revenue comes from a low-friction, bottom-up adoption path? This tells you how much of your business is truly "product-led."
Bringing It All Together: Your PLG Velocity Score™
Each of these metrics is a critical input. By scoring your company against them, you can calculate a single, weighted score that represents your true readiness to scale. It provides a baseline for your team, a clear metric for your board, and a roadmap for what to fix next.
Ready to calculate your score? Our definitive new guide, "From Sales-Led to Product-Led," includes the full, interactive PLG Velocity Scorecard™ and a phased implementation roadmap based on your results. Download the Full Guide & Scorecard
To get started right away, download our free Essential PLG Metrics Dashboard Template. It’s pre-configured to help you begin tracking the critical inputs for your score today.
