The metric most vendors track is the metric that matters least
The most common adoption metric in B2B is the number of logins. It is easy to measure, it looks good in dashboards, and it is almost useless for predicting renewal.
A user who logs in once a month to check a report is not adopting the product. A user who never logs in but consumes the product's output via email is adopting the product. A user who logs in every day to perform a single repetitive task may be adopting the product, or may be locked into a workflow that will be the first thing they automate when they get the chance. Logins do not tell you which.
The book identifies five adoption metrics that actually predict renewal. They are not hard to measure. They are hard to look at, because they force the vendor to confront the gap between the customer's experience and the vendor's narrative.
The five metrics
The first metric is active users as a percentage of provisioned users. Provisioned users are the people who have access. Active users are the people who performed a primary workflow in the last 30 days. The gap between the two is the gap between the customer's intent and the customer's reality. If only 20% of provisioned users are active, the renewal is at risk regardless of how happy the project manager says they are.
The second metric is frequency of primary workflow completion. Not logins. Primary workflow completion. A primary workflow is the thing the customer actually bought the product to do. For an email tool, it is emails sent. For an analytics tool, it is reports generated. For a CRM, it is deals moved through the pipeline. Frequency is measured in completions per active user per week.
The third metric is depth of use. Which features are being used, and which are not. Depth of use is measured by the percentage of licensed features that have been used by at least one user in the last 30 days. A customer using 10% of the licensed features is a customer who will not expand. A customer using 80% is a customer who will.
The fourth metric is time-to-value per user. The number of days between a new user being provisioned and that user completing their first primary workflow. If this number is going up over time, the onboarding experience is degrading. If it is going down, the product is becoming easier to use. Most vendors do not measure this. The ones who do see renewal risk months before the customer announces it.
The fifth metric is workflow concentration. The percentage of total usage that comes from the top 10% of users. High concentration means a small number of power users are carrying the engagement. When those power users leave, the customer leaves. Low concentration means the product is embedded in the organization's daily work.
The health score
The five metrics combine into a single health score. The book proposes a simple formula: a weighted average of the five metrics, normalized to a 0–100 scale, with weights that match the customer's definition of success (set in the expectations document).
A health score above 80 means the renewal is on track. A health score between 50 and 80 means the renewal is at risk and intervention is needed. A health score below 50 means the renewal is a recovery project, and the next 90 days are a different conversation.
The health score is reviewed monthly with the customer. Not as a report. As a conversation. The conversation is the point. The number is the input.
What to do when the numbers drop
When a metric drops, the response is not a campaign. The response is a conversation with the customer about what changed.
The most common cause of a drop in adoption is a change in the customer's organization — a new leader, a reorg, a budget cut, a strategic shift. The second most common cause is a change in the product — a release that broke a workflow, a pricing change, a deprecation. The third most common cause is a change in the user's environment — a new tool that competes for the same workflow, a new process that does not need the product anymore.
The response in all three cases is the same: a 30-minute conversation with the customer's main contact, in which the vendor surfaces the change and asks how to adapt. The conversation is the intervention. The fix comes after.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good adoption rate for B2B SaaS?
The book uses the rule of thumb that 60% of provisioned users should be active monthly for the renewal to be safe. Below 40%, the renewal is at risk. Above 80%, the account is a candidate for expansion. These numbers vary by segment, but the principle is consistent: most vendors overestimate adoption because they count provisioned users as active users.
How often should the health score be reviewed?
Monthly with the customer's main contact, quarterly with the customer's leadership. The monthly review catches problems early. The quarterly review is the renewal conversation in miniature.
What is the difference between adoption and engagement?
Adoption is structural: are the right people using the product in the right workflows? Engagement is emotional: do those people feel positive about using it? A customer can be highly adopted and disengaged (compliance scenarios), or highly engaged and poorly adopted (enthusiastic power users, no organizational spread). Renewal requires both.
How do you measure depth of use without surveying the customer?
Most modern products emit usage events for every feature. The percentage of features that have been used in the last 30 days is calculable from the event stream. If the product does not emit these events, that is a product problem, not a measurement problem — and it is one of the most common reasons vendors do not know their real adoption numbers.
What is the single most predictive metric of renewal?
Workflow concentration. If 10% of users are doing 80% of the work, the renewal is structurally fragile. When those users leave, the engagement collapses. The fix is to spread the workflow across more users, which requires a deliberate program — not a campaign.
Conclusion
Login counts are vanity. The five adoption metrics that predict renewal are active users, frequency of primary workflow, depth of use, time-to-value per user, and workflow concentration. They combine into a health score that is reviewed monthly with the customer. When the numbers drop, the response is a conversation, not a campaign.
The next chapter covers the follow-up meeting: the rhythm that keeps the conversation alive when the customer's attention has moved on to other priorities.
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About the author: Reginaldo Osnildo is a journalist, professor, and author of works on sales, technology, and communication strategies. His work connects academic research, practical business experience, and storytelling to deliver clear, didactic, and applicable knowledge.
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