Percent of Accounts with 3+ Activated Users¶

Definition¶

Percent of Accounts with 3+ Activated Users measures the share of accounts where at least three individual users have completed activation steps. It helps identify depth of adoption and signals potential virality or team-based expansion.

Description¶

Percent of Accounts with 3+ Activated Users is a key indicator of product adoption depth and account health, reflecting how user activation across a team impacts retention potential, upsell readiness, and overall engagement quality in account-based models.

The relevance and interpretation of this metric shift depending on the model or product:

In B2B SaaS (like project management or collaboration platforms), it highlights cross-team adoption and embedded usage — crucial for reducing churn and unlocking expansion revenue
In developer-focused tools, it reflects active engagement by multiple team members, such as pushing code or hitting APIs — a proxy for how indispensable the tool is becoming
In PLG-driven environments, it surfaces natural virality and usage spread, supporting product-led growth loops through user invitations and organic adoption

A rising trend typically signals strong product-market fit and collaborative stickiness, while a falling or stagnant trend may point to friction in onboarding, weak value messaging, or limited team utility. This helps teams optimize activation flows, invite prompts, and in-product nudges. By segmenting by cohort — such as industry, company size, plan type, or acquisition channel — you unlock insights for tailoring onboarding, prioritizing expansion candidates, and refining team-based GTM strategies.

Percent of Accounts with 3+ Activated Users informs:

Strategic decisions, like prioritizing accounts for upsell or success outreach
Tactical actions, such as triggering nudges for team invites or collaborative feature adoption
Operational improvements, including better onboarding design, contextual help, and usage milestone prompts
Cross-functional alignment, by connecting signals across product, marketing, sales, and CS teams, keeping everyone focused on sustainable account growth and product stickiness

Key Drivers¶

These are the main factors that directly impact the metric. Understanding these lets you know what levers you can pull to improve the outcome

Onboarding Completion Rate: Users who drop off during onboarding are far less likely to activate. A long or unclear onboarding experience adds friction and delays time-to-value, which directly suppresses activation rates.
Time-to-First-Value (TTFV): The quicker a user experiences value, the more likely they are to activate. This can be influenced by product UX, feature discoverability, or pre-filled data that accelerates setup.
Clarity of Value Proposition During Signup: If the signup flow doesn’t reinforce why the product is worth using, motivation dips early. Confusion or mismatch between marketing promises and product experience can increase churn before activation.
Support Access During Early Use: Lack of accessible help (e.g., live chat, guides, tooltips) can frustrate users trying to complete initial steps. Especially for B2B or complex tools, this support gap creates friction at a critical moment.

Improvement Tactics & Quick Wins¶

Actionable ideas to optimize this KPI, from fast, low-effort wins to strategic initiatives that drive measurable impact.

If onboarding drop-off is high, redesign it into a progressive flow with a visible progress bar and optional “skip” for advanced users. Use analytics to identify where most users stall and simplify those steps.
Add interactive walkthroughs and in-app checklists to guide users toward the activation milestone. Highlight the value of completing each step — e.g., “You’re 1 step away from publishing your first campaign.”
Run a test comparing time-to-first-value for users with vs. without pre-filled templates. If activation improves, consider making templates part of default setup.
Refine welcome emails to include a clear CTA tied to activation, like “Start your first project now” with a deep link into the product. Avoid generic intros — drive toward action.
Partner with the Customer Success team to proactively assist high-value signups, either via onboarding calls or triggered chat nudges when they stall during setup.
Add milestone celebration modals (e.g., confetti, progress update) when users hit activation. This positive reinforcement boosts retention and gives users a sense of accomplishment.

Required Datapoints to calculate the metric
- Total Accounts: All accounts in the relevant cohort.
- Activated Users per Account: Number of users in each account who have hit activation.
- Activation Criteria: Defined behavioral triggers per user.
Example to show how the metric is derived

A B2B SaaS company tracks 500 accounts:
- Accounts with ≥ 3 Activated Users: 150
- Formula: (150 ÷ 500) × 100
- Result: 30%

Formula¶

Formula

\[ \mathrm{Percent\ of\ Accounts\ with\ 3+\ Activated\ Users} = \left( \frac{\mathrm{Accounts\ with\ \geq\ 3\ Activated\ Users}}{\mathrm{Total\ Accounts}} \right) \times 100 \]

Data Model Definition¶

How this KPI is structured in Cube.js, including its key measures, dimensions, and calculation logic for consistent reporting.

AccountsUsers

cube('Accounts', {
  sql: `SELECT * FROM accounts`,

  measures: {
    totalAccounts: {
      sql: `id`,
      type: 'count',
      title: 'Total Accounts',
      description: 'Total number of accounts in the relevant cohort.'
    },
    accountsWith3PlusActivatedUsers: {
      sql: `CASE WHEN activated_users >= 3 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END`,
      type: 'sum',
      title: 'Accounts with 3+ Activated Users',
      description: 'Number of accounts where at least three users have completed activation steps.'
    },
    percentOfAccountsWith3PlusActivatedUsers: {
      sql: `100.0 * ${accountsWith3PlusActivatedUsers} / NULLIF(${totalAccounts}, 0)` ,
      type: 'number',
      title: 'Percent of Accounts with 3+ Activated Users',
      description: 'Percentage of accounts where at least three users have completed activation steps.'
    }
  },

  dimensions: {
    id: {
      sql: `id`,
      type: 'string',
      primaryKey: true,
      title: 'Account ID',
      description: 'Unique identifier for each account.'
    },
    createdAt: {
      sql: `created_at`,
      type: 'time',
      title: 'Account Creation Date',
      description: 'The date when the account was created.'
    }
  }
});

cube('Users', {
  sql: `SELECT * FROM users`,

  measures: {
    activatedUsers: {
      sql: `id`,
      type: 'count',
      title: 'Activated Users',
      description: 'Number of users who have completed activation steps.'
    }
  },

  dimensions: {
    id: {
      sql: `id`,
      type: 'string',
      primaryKey: true,
      title: 'User ID',
      description: 'Unique identifier for each user.'
    },
    accountId: {
      sql: `account_id`,
      type: 'string',
      title: 'Account ID',
      description: 'Identifier for the account to which the user belongs.'
    },
    activatedAt: {
      sql: `activated_at`,
      type: 'time',
      title: 'User Activation Date',
      description: 'The date when the user completed activation steps.'
    }
  }
});

Note: This is a reference implementation and should be used as a starting point. You’ll need to adapt it to match your own data model and schema

Positive & Negative Influences¶

Negative influences

Factors that drive the metric in an undesirable direction, often signaling risk or decline.
- Onboarding Drop-off Rate: A high drop-off rate during onboarding directly reduces the number of users who reach activation, decreasing the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Long Onboarding Process: A lengthy onboarding process can deter users from completing activation, negatively impacting the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Unclear Value Proposition: An unclear value proposition during signup can lead to user confusion and early churn, reducing the likelihood of having 3+ activated users per account.
- Lack of Support Access: Insufficient support access during early use can frustrate users, hindering activation and decreasing the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Delayed Time-to-First-Value (TTFV): A delayed TTFV can lead to user disengagement and lower activation rates, negatively affecting the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
Positive influences

Factors that push the metric in a favorable direction, supporting growth or improvement.
- Onboarding Completion Rate: A higher onboarding completion rate ensures that more users reach the activation stage, increasing the likelihood of having 3+ activated users per account.
- Time-to-First-Value (TTFV): Reducing TTFV enhances user satisfaction and engagement, leading to quicker activation and a higher percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Clarity of Value Proposition During Signup: A clear value proposition during signup boosts user motivation and reduces early churn, increasing the number of users who activate.
- Support Access During Early Use: Providing accessible support during early use helps users overcome initial hurdles, facilitating activation and increasing the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Feature Discoverability: Improved feature discoverability allows users to quickly find and utilize key functionalities, promoting activation and increasing the percentage of accounts with 3+ activated users.

Involved Roles & Activities¶

Involved Roles

These roles are typically responsible for implementing or monitoring this KPI:

Customer Success
Growth
Customer Lifecycle Management
Product Management (PM)
Product Marketing (PMM)
Activities

Common initiatives or actions associated with this KPI:

Product-Led Growth
Expansion Plays
Onboarding Optimization
Seat Adoption Strategy

Funnel Stage & Type¶

AAARRR Funnel Stage

This KPI is associated with the following stages in the AAARRR (Pirate Metrics) funnel:

Activation
Retention
Revenue
Type

This KPI is classified as a Lagging Indicator. It reflects the results of past actions or behaviors and is used to validate performance or assess the impact of previous strategies.

Supporting Leading & Lagging Metrics¶

Leading

These leading indicators influence this KPI and act as early signals that forecast future changes in this KPI.
- Product Qualified Accounts: Product Qualified Accounts (PQAs) capture when multiple users at an account demonstrate meaningful engagement. This is often a precursor to having 3+ activated users, as accounts with strong collective engagement are more likely to activate multiple users and drive expansion.
- Activation Rate: A high Activation Rate signals that more users are reaching initial value milestones, increasing the likelihood that accounts will reach the threshold of 3+ activated users over time.
- Monthly Active Users: Monthly Active Users reflects overall product engagement and health. A steady or growing MAU base increases the pool of users who could move toward full activation, especially within multi-user accounts.
- Stickiness Ratio: A high Stickiness Ratio (DAU/MAU) indicates habitual usage. Accounts with sticky usage patterns are more likely to have several users become activated, contributing to higher percentages of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Product Adoption Rate: Product Adoption Rate tracks how quickly users embrace the product post-introduction. Broad and fast adoption within accounts leads to more accounts reaching deeper activation, including the 3+ user milestone.
Lagging

These lagging indicators confirm, quantify, or amplify this KPI and help explain the broader business impact on this KPI after the fact.
- Percent of Accounts Completing Key Activation Milestones: This metric directly complements the target by measuring how many accounts reach important activation checkpoints. It quantifies activation progress and explains fluctuations in the share of accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Activation Cohort Retention Rate (Day 7/30): Retention of users post-activation is critical for sustaining and growing the count of activated users per account. High retention rates among activated cohorts support the rise in accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Breadth of Use: Breadth of Use measures how many features are adopted within an account. Accounts using more features are more likely to have multiple users activated, supporting higher depth of adoption.
- Activation-to-Expansion Rate: This measures what percentage of activated accounts expand (often by adding users). High rates here indicate that activation is driving account growth, which usually translates into more accounts with 3+ activated users.
- Multi-Session Activation Completion Rate: This captures accounts/users who complete activation over multiple sessions, reflecting persistence and depth. It helps explain the success rate of accounts reaching the 3+ activated user threshold.