What is a good activation rate

Lenny Rachitsky and growth advisor Yuriy Timen ran a benchmarking survey of over 500 product teams to answer what counts as a good activation rate. The article defines activation as the share of new users who reach a milestone predictive of long-term retention, and reports averages and medians across product types. It finds the overall average is 34% and the median 25%, with SaaS products somewhat higher, and explains that variance is driven mostly by how the milestone is defined. It also lists the most common tactics teams used to raise activation and common mistakes in choosing a milestone. For product leaders, it offers a practical benchmark and a way to test whether an activation metric is truly causal.

01Key takeaways

• Use the metric activation rate = users reaching the milestone divided by users completing signup, and track it per new cohort.
• Pick an early milestone that is at least twice as predictive of retention as not reaching it, and that your team can directly influence.
• Avoid defining activation as bare signup, which is too early, or as repeated purchases, which is too late.
• Benchmark against your product type: SaaS median is around 30%, while marketplaces and e-commerce naturally run lower.
• Shorten and simplify onboarding first; reducing steps and friction was the most frequently credited improvement.
• Validate causality through experiments on activation, then confirm that later retention or monetization also improves.

02Key sections

What activation rate measures

Activation rate is the share of signed-up users who reach a predictive early milestone, often called the aha moment. Reaching it is meant to signal the start of a habit.

Choosing a good activation milestone

A strong milestone is highly predictive, with retention at least twice as high for activated users, and actionable by the growth team. Examples span food logging to first booking.

Benchmarks by product type

Overall average activation is 34% and median 25%, while SaaS shows 36% average and 30% median. Marketplaces and e-commerce sit lowest because they often use first purchase as the milestone.

Tactics that raised activation

Respondents most often credited simpler onboarding, reduced friction, follow-up emails, clearer copy, better top-of-funnel targeting, and sales outreach. Incentives and showing value earlier also appeared.

Common mistakes and validating causality

Milestones set too early or too late, or that are not predictive or actionable, are common errors. Causality should be confirmed by running experiments on activation and checking whether later retention moves too.

03From the post

“1. Mission → Vision → Strategy → Goals → Roadmap → Task 2. The Racecar Growth Framework—expanded and illustrated Subscribe to get access to these posts, and every post. Q: What is considered a good activation rate? Increasing activation rate is one of the highest-leverage growth levers across most products, and it’s often the single best way to increase your retention. But knowing what a good activation rate is, and how to improve it, has been difficult if not impossible. For that reason, it’s been one of the most frequent questions I’ve received from readers over the years. To finally get you an answer, I teamed up with Yuriy Timen (growth advisor and recent podcast guest) to run a global benchmarking survey, asking readers to contribute their activation rate and what they’ve learned about increasing it. We exceeded our expectations and ended up with over 500 responses, which I believe is the largest survey of its kind. Here’s a sampling of products represented in this survey: Below, you’ll find GOOD and GREAT activation rates (by product type), the most common…”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.