Are you a product manager, or an aspiring one, who has ever felt a little lost in a sea of data, trying to figure out if your users truly love your product? You see the daily sign-ups and some activity, but you’re not sure if you have a “sticky” product that users can’t live without. If this sounds familiar, then understanding the Product Engagement Score (PES) is about to become your new superpower.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the Product Engagement Score. We’ll start with the basics and move to an advanced understanding, all in a simplified, humanized language. By the end of this article, you’ll not only be a master of this topic but also be equipped with the knowledge to apply it to your own products and drive growth.

Definition & Origin

The Product Engagement Score was introduced by Pendo to address the challenge of measuring product engagement in a standardized way. Unlike metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), which are based on user-reported sentiment, PES is rooted in actual user actions. It’s calculated by combining three key components: Adoption, Stickiness, and Growth.

Benefits & Use-Cases: Why PES Matters

So, why should you care about your Product Engagement Score? Here are some of the key benefits and use-cases:

• A Single Source of Truth: PES gives you one number to track the overall health of your product’s engagement. This makes it easier to communicate the state of your product to stakeholders.
• Diagnose Product Health: A low PES can be an early warning sign of potential issues. By digging into the individual components of the score, you can identify which areas of your product need attention.
• Identify Power Users and PQLs: A high PES can help you identify your most engaged users, or “power users.” These users can be a great source of feedback and advocacy. It can also help you identify Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs) – users who are showing strong buying signals through their product usage.
• Reduce Churn: A declining PES can be a leading indicator of churn. By monitoring your PES, you can take proactive steps to re-engage at-risk users before they leave.
• Improve the Product Experience: PES provides a data-driven way to understand how users are interacting with your product. This allows you to make more informed decisions about your product roadmap and feature prioritization.

How It Works: A Step-by-Step Guide to Calculating PES

Calculating the Product Engagement Score is a straightforward process once you have the data for its three components.

The Formula:

Product Engagement Score (PES) = (Adoption + Stickiness + Growth) / 3

Let’s break down each component:

1. Adoption: This measures how many of your core features your active users are actually using.

• Formula: (Average number of Core Events adopted by active users) / (Total number of Core Events available to them)

2. Stickiness: This evaluates how often users return to your product.

• Formula: (Daily Active Users / Weekly Active Users) OR (Weekly Active Users / Monthly Active Users). The right formula for you will depend on your product’s intended use frequency.

3. Growth: This measures the net growth of your user base.

• Formula: This is often calculated using the “Quick Ratio”: (New + Reactivated Users) / Churned Users

Mistakes to Avoid

While PES is a powerful metric, there are some common pitfalls to avoid:

• Not Defining “Core Events” Properly: Your adoption score is highly dependent on what you define as a “core event.” Make sure these are actions that truly represent value to your users.
• Ignoring User Segments: A single PES for your entire user base can be misleading. Segment your users (e.g., by plan type, user role, or company size) to get a more nuanced understanding of engagement.
• Focusing Only on the Score: The PES is a diagnostic tool, not just a number to report. The real value comes from understanding why the score is what it is.
• Not Combining PES with Qualitative Data: PES tells you what users are doing, but it doesn’t tell you why. Combine your PES data with qualitative feedback from user interviews, surveys, and support tickets.

Examples & Case Studies: PES in the Wild

Let’s look at a real-world example of how a company might use PES.

Case Study: A Project Management SaaS Tool

A project management SaaS company wants to improve user engagement. They decide to start tracking their PES.

• Adoption: They define their core events as: creating a project, adding a task, assigning a task, and completing a task.
• Stickiness: Since their tool is designed for daily use, they use the DAU/WAU ratio.
• Growth: They track new sign-ups, reactivated accounts, and churned accounts.

After a few weeks, they find their PES is a mediocre 60. They dig into the components and discover that while stickiness and growth are decent, their adoption score is very low. They realize that many users are only using the basic “create a project” and “add a task” features, and aren’t discovering the more advanced collaboration features.

Armed with this insight, they create a new in-app onboarding flow that guides users to discover and use these advanced features. A month later, they see their adoption score has increased, which in turn has boosted their overall PES to 75.

Related Concepts & Comparisons: PES vs. Other Metrics

• PES vs. NPS (Net Promoter Score): NPS measures user sentiment (what users say), while PES measures user behavior (what users do). The two are complementary and should be used together for a complete picture of product health.
• PES vs. Customer Health Score: A Customer Health Score is often a more complex, custom-weighted score used by Customer Success teams to predict churn. PES is a more standardized, product-focused metric.

Strategies to Improve Your Product Engagement Score

Knowing your Product Engagement Score is the first step. The real value comes from using that insight to actively improve user engagement. A low score in any of the three pillars—Adoption, Stickiness, or Growth, gives you a clear signal on where to focus your efforts. Here are some proven strategies to boost your PES.

Boosting Feature Adoption

If your Adoption score is lagging, it means users aren’t discovering or using the key features that provide the most value. The goal is to guide them to that “Aha!” moment faster.

• Implement Contextual Onboarding: Instead of a one-size-fits-all product tour, use in-app guides, tooltips, and interactive walkthroughs that trigger based on user behavior. Guide users to discover features at the exact moment they need them.
• Announce New Features Effectively: Don’t just ship a feature and hope users find it. Announce it through multiple channels: in-app modals, email newsletters, blog posts, and release notes. Highlight the benefit of the feature, not just its function.
• Analyze User Paths: Use product analytics to understand the paths users take. If many users drop off before reaching a core feature, there might be a usability issue or a confusing step in the workflow that needs to be simplified.

Increasing Stickiness and User Retention

A low Stickiness score indicates that users aren’t coming back regularly. Your product hasn’t become a part of their routine. The key is to build habits and create an indispensable experience.

• Leverage Smart Notifications: Use personalized push notifications and email reminders to bring users back. Remind them of pending tasks, new content relevant to them, or weekly progress summaries. Be careful not to be spammy; notifications must provide clear value.
• Focus on Performance and Reliability: Nothing kills stickiness faster than a slow, buggy product. A seamless, fast, and reliable user experience is a fundamental requirement for retention. Users will not stick around if the product is frustrating to use.
• Introduce Gamification: Elements like progress bars, achievement badges, and leaderboards can make the user experience more compelling and encourage repeated use. This is particularly effective for products in education, fitness, and productivity.

Driving Sustainable Growth

The Growth component of PES measures the net increase in your active user base. It’s about ensuring more users are coming in (and coming back) than are leaving.

• Optimize the New User Experience (NUX): The first few minutes a user spends with your product are critical. A smooth, welcoming, and value-focused NUX will significantly improve the chances that a new signup becomes an engaged, long-term user.
• Build Viral Loops: Create features that encourage users to invite their colleagues or friends. For example, a collaboration tool might allow a user to share a project with a non-user, who then must sign up to participate, creating a natural growth loop.
• Launch Re-engagement Campaigns: Identify users who have become inactive or “dormant.” Target them with specific email campaigns that highlight new features, offer a special promotion, or simply remind them of the value they can get from your product.

Conclusion

In the end, the Product Engagement Score is far more than just another metric to track on a dashboard; it’s a strategic compass for your entire product team. It translates complex user behaviors into a single, digestible score that directly reflects the health of your product and its ability to deliver value. By moving beyond vanity metrics and focusing on how deeply and frequently users interact with your core features, you gain an honest, data-backed understanding of whether you are building a product that people genuinely need and love. This clarity allows you to make smarter roadmap decisions, predict churn, and align your team around the shared goal of creating a truly indispensable user experience.

The journey to a high Product Engagement Score is not a one-time project but a continuous cycle of listening, analyzing, and iterating. Don’t be discouraged if your initial score isn’t perfect. Instead, view it as your baseline—a starting point from which you can grow. By consistently measuring your PES, digging into its components, and applying targeted strategies to improve adoption, stickiness, and growth, you empower yourself to build not just a successful product, but a loyal community of engaged advocates who will help drive your business forward for years to come.

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