If you are an MSP owner, chances are you are not short on data.

You have dashboards. Reports. Ticket stats. Tool metrics stacked on top of tool metrics.

And yet, you are still busy. Margins still feel tight. Growth feels harder than it should.

That is not because you are not working hard enough. It is because most MSPs are measuring activity rather than traction.

Running your MSP without the right metrics is like driving at night with your headlights off. You might keep moving, but eventually you are going to hit something.

Scrappy Doesn’t Scale.

Most MSPs are built scrappy. The owner sells. The owner manages. The owner jumps into tickets when things get hairy. That hustle phase works until it doesn’t.

What I see over and over again is MSP owners obsessing over lagging indicators. They look at:

Tickets closed.
Hours billed.
How busy the team feels.

Those numbers tell you what already happened. They do not help you predict what is coming next. And if your only scoreboard is your bank balance at payroll time, you are already behind.

The MSPs that scale profitably do not work harder. They measure smarter.

Tonya Petrozzi

Differences Between a Dashboard and a Scorecard

Here is the shift most MSPs need to make. Dashboards show you everything.
Scorecards show you what actually matters. A true MSP Scorecard focuses on a small set of numbers that predict growth, expose issues early, and drive accountability across the leadership team. And it splits metrics into two categories.

Monthly Outcomes: Your Scoreboard

These tell you if you won or lost, but only after the game is over.

Monthly Recurring Revenue growth
Client churn
EBITDA and profitability
Revenue per employee

These numbers matter for valuation, cash flow, and long-term health, but they are lagging indicators.

If you wait until month end to react, you only get 11 chances a year to course correct.

Weekly Leading Indicators: Your Playbook

This is where high performing MSPs separate themselves.

Weekly metrics give you 51 chances a year to adjust before small issues become big fires.

Pipeline value
First time appointments
Tickets per endpoint
Response and resolution times
Reopen rates
First call resolution

These are the levers that actually move your monthly results.

When reviewed consistently, they tell you if sales is slowing before revenue dips, if service quality is degrading before clients complain, and if inefficiencies are creeping in before margins erode.

Metrics do not replace leadership, but they inform it.

Why Most MSP Scorecards Fail

Most MSPs do not fail because they picked the wrong metrics.
They fail because no one owns them.

A scorecard without accountability is just numbers on a screen.

The MSPs that thrive assign clear ownership to each number, review them weekly with their leadership team, use trends rather than single data points to drive decisions, and treat metrics as conversation starters, not weapons.

This is how owners get out of firefighting mode and into a true leadership role.

From Vibes to Visibility

The MSPs that scale profitably do not chase every alert, measure everything, or rely on gut feel alone. They focus on the few numbers that matter, review them every week, and hold their teams accountable.

That is how they stabilize cash flow, improve service without burning out techs, build valuation whether they plan to sell or not, and create a business that does not depend on the owner for every decision.

You do not need more data. You need better data and a system to run it.

Want the Full Scorecard?

This article only scratches the surface.

I put together The MSP Owner’s Scorecard to cut through the noise and outline the 10 metrics every MSP should track, what good actually looks like for each, and how to use them to lead instead of react.

(Tonya Petrozzi is a business coach, professional EOS Implementer, and Certified Kolbe Consultant who helps MSP owners turn chaos into clarity and growth into scale. She has more than 15 years of experience in the IT channel, and has helped MSPs scale operations, build leadership teams, and navigate growth organically and through M&A and private equity transactions.)