The 7 Metrics Every Small Business Owner Should Track Weekly
Most businesses track too many numbers and act on none of them. The right answer is fewer metrics, looked at more consistently. This guide gives you the seven numbers that predict business health — and tells you exactly how to track them without building a data engineering team.
READY TO TAKE ACTION?
Use the free LaunchAdvisor checklist to track every step in this guide.
Why most business dashboards fail
A dashboard with 40 metrics creates decision paralysis, not clarity. Every number added to a dashboard reduces the probability that any of them drive action. The goal is not comprehensive reporting — it is a small set of leading indicators that tell you whether the business is on track before the problem becomes a crisis.
Metric 1: Monthly Recurring Revenue or Monthly Revenue
The top-line number. For subscription businesses, this is MRR — the predictable monthly revenue base. For transactional businesses, it is total monthly revenue. Track the absolute number and the week-over-week and month-over-month growth rate. A flat revenue line that should be growing is your earliest warning signal.
Metric 2: Customer Acquisition Cost
How much does it cost to acquire one new customer? Divide total marketing and sales spend for the month by the number of new customers. If CAC is rising and LTV is not, your growth engine is getting less efficient. Track this monthly at minimum, weekly if you are running paid ads.
Metric 3: Customer Lifetime Value
How much revenue does a customer generate over the full relationship? For subscription businesses: average monthly revenue times average subscription length. For transactional businesses: average order value times average number of purchases per year times average customer lifespan. LTV:CAC above 3:1 is a healthy growth business.
Metric 4: Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who cancel or do not return in a given period. For subscription businesses: divide customers lost this month by customers at the start of the month. High churn kills growth even when acquisition is working — a leaky bucket cannot be filled. Track it monthly and investigate every cancellation.
Metric 5: Cash Runway
How many months can the business operate at current burn rate before cash runs out? Divide current cash balance by average monthly net cash outflow. This number should never drop below three months without a plan. Review it monthly. This is the metric that prevents surprise insolvency.
Metric 6: Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate
What percentage of leads convert to paying customers? Track it at each stage: leads to qualified, qualified to proposal, proposal to closed. If conversion is dropping, you have either an acquisition quality problem or a sales process problem. Knowing which saves weeks of misguided effort.
Metric 7: Net Promoter Score
A simple measure of whether customers are happy enough to recommend you. Send a one-question survey quarterly: how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? Score 0-10. Promoters (9-10) minus Detractors (0-6) equals NPS. Low NPS predicts churn and referral drought before it shows up in revenue.
How to build your weekly dashboard
Start with a Google Sheet. Five columns: metric name, last week value, this week value, change, and notes. Fill it every Monday morning. It takes 15 minutes. Use Google Analytics for traffic, QuickBooks or Stripe for revenue, your CRM for conversion data, and your accounting tool for cash. The discipline of looking at these numbers weekly changes how you run the business.
RECOMMENDED TOOLS
Google Analytics 4
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Hotjar
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Plausible
Privacy-first analytics — simple dashboard, no cookie banner
Google Search Console
See what keywords bring people to your site
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How often should I look at my metrics?
Revenue, CAC, and pipeline: weekly. LTV, churn, and NPS: monthly. Cash runway: monthly, more frequently if under six months. The goal is to spot trends before they become emergencies, not to react to daily noise.
Do I need special software for a business dashboard?
No. A Google Sheet updated weekly is more valuable than a sophisticated BI tool that no one looks at. Start with a spreadsheet and add software (Looker Studio, Databox) only when manual data collection becomes the bottleneck.
What is a good LTV:CAC ratio?
3:1 is the commonly cited healthy threshold for a growing business. Below 1:1 means you are losing money acquiring customers. Above 5:1 may indicate you are underinvesting in growth — you have room to acquire more customers at higher cost.
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