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The MSP KPI Playbook: Essential Metrics to Monitor for Sustainable Growth

Written by Rev.io | May 8, 2025 6:19:06 PM

Top 5 Takeaways: 

  1. MSPs should focus on tracking profitability, productivity, and client satisfaction KPIs: Monitoring metrics like MRR, technician utilization, and CSAT provides a comprehensive view of business performance and growth opportunities.
  2. Real-time KPI tracking is essential for sustainable MSP growth: Using a centralized platform improves decision-making, reduces revenue leakage, and provides visibility into operations.
  3. MSPs must avoid vanity metrics and prioritize actionable KPIs: Effective KPIs drive decisions and performance improvements, such as revenue per technician, SLA compliance, and contract profitability.
  4. Every KPI should be tied to a SMART goal: Setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals ensures KPIs lead to meaningful business outcomes.
  5. When KPIs are visible and embedded into daily workflows, teams focus on the right priorities. Real-time dashboards help leadership monitor performance trends, identify issues early, and empower technicians with goal-oriented metrics, turning data into a daily driver of success.

Running your business on spreadsheets, gut instincts, or fragmented systems is a fast track to burnout and stalled growth.

Top-performing MSPs know that success depends on more than just technical expertise or hustle. Best-in-class providers keep churn below 5%, a feat made possible by data-driven visibility into their operations. You can’t scale a modern MSP on hustle alone—real growth starts with real-time insight. When you consistently monitor the right metrics across profitability, productivity and client satisfaction, you unlock the ability to optimize service delivery, reduce waste, and grow profitably.

Below, we outline the key KPIs that every MSP should track and how centralized tools make it easier to stay on course.

Why Tracking KPIs Is Critical for Growing MSPs

Many MSPs still rely on disconnected tools or manual processes to manage tickets, billing, and performance. But as your business grows, that patchwork setup creates operational gaps that limit scalability. Here are just a few of the challenges that come from operating without centralized visibility:

  • Limited visibility into profit and performance: Without centralized data, it’s difficult to understand margins, pinpoint inefficiencies, or identify growth opportunities.
  • Delayed decision-making: Disconnected systems lead to outdated or incomplete information, which slows your ability to respond to issues or adapt strategy.
  • Revenue leakage: Missed billable hours, untracked services, or inaccurate invoicing can quietly drain profitability.

Real-time KPI tracking gives you a clear view into every corner of your business, from technician utilization to contract profitability. A centralized platform brings all your data together, so your team can stay aligned, move faster, and focus on what actually drives growth.

The 3 KPI Categories Every MSP Must Master

Every MSP should be tracking KPIs in three core areas: profitability, productivity, and client satisfaction. These give you a clear picture of how your business is performing—and where to focus to improve results. 

1. Profitability KPIs

Profitability KPIs help you monitor financial performance, evaluate service pricing, and improve your revenue model. Below are the core profitability KPIs MSPs should track to maintain healthy margins and make informed business decisions.

  • Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): The foundation for predictable, scalable income. Accurate billing management ensures that every recurring service is consistently captured and invoiced, providing reliable visibility into your revenue stream.
  • Cost of goods sold (COGS): Essential for understanding service delivery costs. COGS helps identify rising expenses and areas for margin improvement.
  • Average revenue per user (ARPU): This reflects client value and pricing effectiveness, with healthy MSPs averaging $100 to $500 per user per month. Tracking ARPU over time reveals the impact of upselling, bundling, or premium service tiers.
  • Gross profit margin: Target around 50–60%. Falling below that range may signal pricing inefficiencies or rising costs. Regular monitoring ensures a healthy balance between expenses and the service's value.
  • Client contribution and contract profitability: Evaluates account-level performance to identify high-value clients. These insights guide where to invest resources and which contracts may need adjustment.
  • EBITDA: Offers a big-picture view of financial health. It’s a core metric for gauging operational efficiency and preparing for future growth or investment opportunities.

2. Productivity KPIs

Your team’s efficiency directly impacts your bottom line. These KPIs highlight how well your resources are allocated and where improvements can be made.

  • Technician utilization rate: Optimal range is 70–90%. Rates below suggest underuse; rates above may lead to burnout. Balanced utilization keeps technicians productive and engaged, critical for both profitability and retention.
  • Average first response time: Measures how quickly your team acknowledges service requests. Faster responses enhance client satisfaction and set a positive tone for the overall support experience.
  • Average resolution time: Indicates how efficiently your team resolves issues and meets service-level agreements (SLAs). Shorter resolution times improve customer satisfaction and highlight operational effectiveness.
  • Opened vs. closed ticket ratio: A widening gap signals resource or process issues. Tracking this ratio helps determine when to scale your team, redistribute workloads, or refine ticket workflows.
  • Time on non-billable work: Reveals inefficiencies in technician time allocation. Reducing non-billable hours allows your team to focus on revenue-driving tasks and higher-value client support.

3. Client-focused KPIs

Retaining high-quality clients is vital for long-term growth. These KPIs measure satisfaction, loyalty, and account value.

  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Captures real-time feedback on the quality of service delivery. High CSAT scores indicate that your team consistently meets client expectations.
  • Net promoter score (NPS): Measures how likely clients are to recommend your services. It’s a strong indicator of loyalty and long-term retention.
  • Churn rate: Represents the percentage of clients who cancel services over a given period. Top-performing MSPs keep this below 5% to maintain steady growth
  • SLA compliance: Tracks how well your team meets agreed-upon service levels. Consistently high compliance builds trust and supports long-term client relationships.
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV): The total revenue a client generates throughout their relationship. For sustainable profitability, aim to keep the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) at or below 20% of the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Tips for Choosing the Right KPIs for Your MSP

Before you start building your dashboard, take a step back and get strategic. Focus on the metrics that drive decisions, improve performance, and fuel growth. Here’s how to pick KPIs that actually move your business forward.

1. Ditch vanity metrics:

Focus on what truly impacts your business. Skip the surface-level stats that look good on a dashboard but don’t inform strategy. Instead, zero in on metrics like revenue per technician, contract profitability, and SLA compliance—numbers that reflect the actual performance of your operations.

Example: Many MSPs highlight total ticket volume as a key metric. While it may seem like a sign of productivity, it doesn’t reveal whether tickets are being resolved efficiently, if they align with contract SLAs, or whether clients are satisfied. A high ticket count might even indicate recurring issues or poor automation. It’s noise unless paired with more actionable insights like first-time resolution rate or average resolution time.

Ask yourself: Does this KPI help me make a decision or take action? If the answer is no, it’s not worth tracking. Prioritize metrics that tie directly to service delivery, cost control, customer retention, and profitability. Let outcomes, not optics, drive your reporting.

Pro Tip: Audit your existing KPI reports. Remove anything that doesn’t influence a process, a decision, or a goal. Then double down on the ones that do.

2. Set SMART goals:

As you focus on growing your tech services company, every KPI should connect to a goal that’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Without clear targets, you’re just collecting data. SMART goals give your metrics purpose and turn them into tools for performance management.

For example:

  • Vague: "Improve technician efficiency."
  • SMART: "Increase billable utilization rate from 60% to 75% by the end of Q2."

Set benchmarks your team can act on, and revisit them regularly as your MSP scales or shifts focus. When goals evolve, your KPIs should too.

Pro Tip: Tie SMART goals to individual roles or team functions to drive accountability and alignment.

3. Build a KPI culture:

KPIs should be more than numbers in a report—they should guide behavior. Help your team understand what’s being measured, why it matters, and how they can influence results. When employees see the link between their work and business performance, they’re more engaged and outcome-focused.

Make KPIs part of daily operations:

  • Review them in team huddles.
  • Include them in performance reviews.
  • Use them to celebrate wins and identify areas for coaching.

A strong KPI culture ensures that everyone, from technicians to leadership, is aligned around the same priorities and performance standards.

Pro Tip: Use a platform like Rev.io to bring all your KPIs into one place. With KPIs embedded directly into daily workflows, teams stay aligned, focused, and empowered to act on the metrics that matter.

Conclusion: Stop the Guesswork. Start Growing Smarter.

MSPs don’t struggle due to a lack of effort—they struggle when decisions are made without the right data. Manual tracking, siloed tools, and limited visibility create blind spots that stall growth.

By focusing on actionable KPIs and using a unified platform to track them, you can bring clarity to your operations, accountability to your team, and confidence to your strategy. When performance metrics are part of your daily workflow, growth becomes intentional and sustainable.

Ready to turn your KPIs into a competitive advantage? Rev.io gives MSPs a single source of truth for billing, PSA, and payments—surfacing the insights you need to grow smarter, faster, and with greater control. 

Try Rev.io today to power your KPI-driven growth.