Track What Matters: 4 Solopreneur Business Metrics
Follower counts won't tell you much.
Your Instagram has 20,000 followers. Your newsletter has a 45% open rate. And yet your bank account stays about the same, even as your audience grows.
A lot of solopreneurs end up tracking vanity metrics. Even though you see numbers climbing, they don’t tell you whether or not you’ve built a sustainable business.
According to a Gusto survey on new business formation, 77% of solopreneurs were profitable in their first year. Being able to pay your bills is a good place to start, but for the next stage, you need to focus more on data. And not just any data… the data that actually tells you something.
I don’t think tracking dozens of numbers makes sense for a solo business (who has time to pull all that together?). But tracking a handful of the right numbers gives you enough visibility to know where you should focus your efforts and where you should spend less time.
What does metrics tracking look like for a solopreneur?
Metrics tracking means watching the small set of numbers that tell you how your business is doing and where it's headed. The goal is to look for trends and see what's working.
I used to track a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet. Every month, I’d look at different tools and systems. I wasn’t tracking a ton of numbers, but it was still a manual process.
These days, I use Claude to gather the information for me. My job is reviewing and reflecting, not data entry.
Anna Burgess Yang
What is a vanity metric?
A vanity metric is a number that goes up without changing anything about your business. Follower counts and page views are the usual examples. They tell you that people are paying attention to your content, but don’t tell you anything about turning that attention into income.
On the Creator Science podcast, host Jay Clouse says:
“A lot of people today think winning is getting attention. You see this number of followers go up, and you’re like, 'Wow, I’m really doing it.' But if it’s not having a direct impact on your downstream revenue on your bank account, then is it really winning?”
You have to follow the number to income. For example, you might track:
- You get 1,000 new followers
- A percentage of them end up on your email list
- A percentage of those end up buying
The path from 1,000 to buyers is what you want to follow, not 1,000 new followers on its own.
4 metrics for getting started
Don’t over-engineer your numbers. A company has a team of people to pull numbers, and you're one person who is managing everything in your business.
These four metrics are a starting point, but you should track whatever is most relevant to how your business makes money.
1. Revenue and profit
Cadence: Monthly
Revenue is the money that comes in. Profit is what you keep after every expense, including what you pay yourself.
Profit margin tells you even more. It’s the percentage of money you keep.
If you earn 60,000 and have 50,000 in expenses, your profit is $10,000. Your profit margin is 16% ($10,000 divided by $60,000). If you earn $100,000 and have $90,000 in expenses, your profit is also $90,000 but your profit margin is only 10%. You’re keeping less of what you earn.
When you grow your business, you want to keep an eye on your profit margin. You might be spending more — like hiring subcontractors or paying for more tools. Those might help your revenue, but they have a negative impact on your profit margin.
2. Client acquisition channels
Cadence: Quarterly if you work with a lot of clients, annually if you only take on a few per year
Every client found you somehow. You may actually get clients from a variety of sources, like referrals, social media, your website, and cold outreach. But which channels drive most of your revenue?
Volume isn't the whole story. A channel can send you a lot of inquiries and still send you the wrong kind of client. You’ve got to keep track of quality alongside a number.
In my business, I’ve always found that referrals end up being my best source of revenue, while website inquiries are hit or miss.
3. Revenue-generating vs. non-revenue-generating work
Cadence: Track weekly, review monthly, adjust quarterly or annually
You’ve got work that earns you money and everything else. “Everything else” covers your admin time, marketing, setting up your systems, and learning new skills. All of it is necessary, and none of it directly lands in your bank account.
According to freelancing statistics from Client Manager, freelancers spend about 60% of their time on work they can invoice for and 40% on everything else. Yours might be similar or very different — but you won’t know unless you actually track your time.
I’m not a fan of time-tracking overall. My client work isn’t hourly. But it’s a useful exercise to occasionally track my time for a few weeks (I use Toggl).
When I track my time, I’m looking for:
- How much time am I spending on non-revenue-generating work (like marketing)?
- Is there any correlation between that work and revenue downstream? For example, if I change my approach to marketing, does it lead to more conversions?
Any time that is spent on non-revenue-generating work, I have to question its place on my calendar.
- Does it benefit my business in some other way?
- Should I still be doing this task, or should I outsource it so I have more time for other parts of my business?
One thing I outsourced was bookkeeping. I used to do my own bookkeeping: a necessary business task. But eventually, I realized that my time was more valuable and I should spend it on other things.
You can’t make those determinations unless you actually track your time.
4. Data from experiments
Cadence: Quarterly
This one covers whether the things you’ve tried are working.
Many solopreneurs experiment a lot. Nobody has to approve a new product or a new price, so you can tweak your social media strategy or landing page copy.
The measuring is the part that gets skipped. You might feel good, but you have no numbers to back up whether your experiment was actually successful.
I keep track of my experiments in Notion, with a narrative:
- What the experiment is
- What I’m expecting to see
- How it went (after one quarter of tracking)
Let your metrics change as your business does
Start with one metric, whatever matters most for your business. The habit of checking your numbers is equally important. If you don’t build the habit, your numbers won’t mean much because they’re uneven or incomplete.
Put a recurring 15-minute review on the calendar, the same way you'd schedule a quarterly check-in, and most of the work turns into reading what's already there. Put a larger chunk of time on your calendar to actually reflect and make decisions about what comes next.
Want to build a life-first business?
These reflections will help you determine your priorities.
Tips for tracking your business metrics
- Pick the metric attached to a decision you're about to make. If you're thinking about raising your prices, start with your profit margin.
- Write the number down in the same place every time. A single tab in one spreadsheet is enough for the first year.
- Set the review before you set up the tracking. A number nobody looks at stops getting updated.
- Keep the cadence slower than feels right. Monthly is often enough, and tracking a quarterly number every week just adds noise.
- Ask a chatbot to sanity-check your list. Describe how your business makes money, and have it tell you which numbers would change a decision.
- Compare yourself to your own last quarter. The numbers other people post online are missing the context that would make them useful.
FAQs
What metrics should solopreneurs track?
Start with metrics tied to specific outcomes, like your revenue, client acquisition channels, and how you spend your time. You don't need to track everything. Pick one or two that give you the most insight into your business.
How do I calculate profit margin?
Subtract your total expenses from your total revenue to get your profit. Then divide your profit by your total revenue to get your profit margin as a percentage.
How often should I review my business metrics?
It depends on your business model, but quarterly is a good place to start. The important part is putting a recurring event on your calendar so you actually collect the data you need.
What's the difference between revenue-generating and non-revenue-generating work?
Revenue-generating work is anything you can invoice for, or that directly brings in money. Non-revenue-generating work includes admin tasks, marketing, and learning new skills. These might be necessary, but not directly tied to income.
