Feature adoption rate is a metric that helps you understand how many of your customers use a particular feature of your product. It is often used as a KPI for customer success, product marketing, and product teams in SaaS companies.
Typically, using more features means customers are getting more value from your product. Therefore, a high feature adoption rate usually leads to increased customer lifetime values, and customer stickiness.
To calculate feature adoption rate, divide the monthly active users of that feature by the total active users of your product, and multiply by 100.
Here's the formula:
Feature Adoption Rate = (Feature Active Users / Total Active Users) * 100.
And here's an example.
Your SaaS product launched a new feature, Export CSV, 3 months ago. Right now, there are 100 active users per month using Export CSV.
In total, your product has 1,000 monthly active users.
Applying the formula, we have:
(100 / 1,000) * 100 = 10% feature adoption rate.
Increasing feature adoption rate is a team sport. Product, product marketing, and customer-facing teams can all influence this metric.
Here’s some quick tips to think about for an increased adoption rate.
Coordinate with the product team for the feature launching, and prepare messaging in advance. Use whichever channels your users are most receptive to. In-app messages, emails, 1:1 success calls, social posts, blog posts – whatever you have at your disposal.
Unless you have a huge team with infinite resources, it’s impossible to work on adoption for every feature simultaneously.
Spend some time figuring out which ones are absolutely the most important. Which features drive stickiness? Which ones lead to upgrades & expansion revenue? Which ones do customers tell you that they can’t live without?
Get clear on what’s most important, and focus your efforts there.
There are dedicated tools for this. Software like WhatFix or AppCues let non-technical teams build interactive product walkthroughs, checklists, tooltips & more to highlight & promote the features you want people to be using.
While you can measure feature adoption rate as a whole, you can dig deeper if you choose. For deeper insights into feature adoption, consider looking at:
1. Time to adopt. From the point of signing up, how long does it take on average for users to start using that feature?
2. Frequency of usage, or ‘depth of adoption’. Are people only using the feature once or twice, or daily?
3. Duration of adoption. After trying the feature for the first time, how long do users continue to engage with it? Adoption could mean a single usage, long-term usage over 12+ months, or anything in between.
More customers using more features typically means they’re getting more value. That leads to better customer retention, expansions, higher LTVs, advocacy, and more.
To calculate feature adoption rate, divide the monthly active users of that feature by the total active users of your product, and multiply by 100.
Here's the formula: Feature Adoption Rate = (Feature Active Users / Total Active Users) * 100.
The best way to measure who is using a feature, and how often (in order to calculate feature adoption rate), you’ll need a SaaS analytics tool like Mixpanel or Amplitude. These platforms can track & report on product usage & behavior, broken down by feature, user, and more.
