Ask a coach for their client success rate and most give a rough direction. Thirty days after tracking goes in, they can give the number.
Each back-end KPI is one division. The work is deciding what goes on top and what goes underneath, then writing it down. Otherwise the number means something different every month.
What do you need before you can calculate anything?
One row per client, with dates. The date of first payment, the date of each milestone, the current stage and its deadline, every payment, and the end date. In the programs we run, that row lives on a Monday.com board and the client success manager keeps it current.
Without dated rows, every KPI below is an opinion. Ask most coaches what data they collect after the sale and the answer is "we know when people started."
What are the formulas?
Seven lines, each with what goes on top and what goes underneath. The bottom of the division is where most coaching numbers go wrong.
| KPI | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Client success rate (CSR) | Clients who hit the promised result inside the term, divided by clients who started, per cohort | How many buyers got what the sales page promised |
| On-track rate (OTR) | Active clients inside the time set for their current stage, divided by all active clients, today | Who the team contacts today |
| Time to value (TTV) | Median days from first payment to the first-win milestone | How fast the first result comes |
| Lifetime duration (LTD) | Average months from first payment to last day as a client, across all offers | How long a client stays |
| Lifetime value (LTV) | Cash collected across all offers, minus refunds and chargebacks, divided by clients, per cohort | What a client is worth |
| Resell rate | Clients who bought a next offer, divided by clients who reached the end of their term | How often the back end sells |
| Proof rate | Winners who gave a testimonial, success interview or review, divided by winners | How much of the result you captured |
How do you calculate client success rate without fooling yourself?
Only count cohorts whose term has ended. A cohort halfway through always looks bad, and a cohort counted before refunds looks too good. The promised result is written down before the cohort starts and does not move.
Refunded and departed clients stay in the bottom of the division. They started, so they count. Once tracking is in, client success rates show 15 to 50% depending on how hard the promise is, around 20% typical.
Acquisition Ace went from unmeasured to 20% and up. Video Business Academy reached 50% and more, in a business offer with a real result.
Result from a named client with written permission. Typical clients of this cohort saw a range of outcomes; nothing here is a guarantee. How we handle claims.
Why is on-track rate a today number?
Because it tells the team who to message before lunch. Every stage has a time it should take, told to the client in the video training. A client past that time is overdue, and the client success manager checks in the same day.
Calculate it daily from the board and record it weekly. Split by stage, it shows the friction zone: the stage where overdue clients pile up.
Should time to value be an average or a median?
A median. One client who takes 90 days to set up an account drags an average far past what most clients experience. The target is a first win inside one to two weeks, and 30 days at the latest.
On arrival, most coaches have no tracking. They know a rough direction, an average something, but not the number. In the first 30 days that changes, because tracking goes in immediately. The best I have seen is 50%, in a business offer with a real result that charges a lot.
What do you divide resell rate and proof rate by?
Resell rate divides by clients who reached the end of their term, because nobody is offered the next program on day ten. Run it a second time over winners only. When the next offer is relevant, up to 30% of everyone buys it, and 40% or more of winners.
Proof rate divides by winners, because only a client with a result can give proof of one. Every third winner is the floor and every second is the target. Some offers reach about 70%.
Two more lines go on the same sheet. Share of revenue from existing clients is back-end cash this month divided by all cash this month. Video Business Academy ran at 30% and more. Refunds are counted per 100 new clients, and under five is a good rate.
How often do you recalculate them?
On-track rate daily, the rest weekly or monthly, and every one of them kept over time. A founder who only sees the current month never sees whether the program got better or worse three months ago.
Further reading: The seven back-end KPIs of a coaching business · How to calculate LTV for a coaching business
Diego Miescher
