RICE score calculator
A RICE score is reach multiplied by impact multiplied by confidence, divided by effort. It turns four judgements about a feature into one number you can sort a backlog by.
RICE score, step by step
Reach is how many people the change touches in a fixed period — usually a quarter. Use a real count from your analytics, not the size of your user base: a setting buried three screens deep reaches the few hundred people who open that screen, not everyone who has an account.
Impact is scored on a fixed scale rather than measured: 3 for massive, 2 for high, 1 for medium, 0.5 for low, 0.25 for minimal. Confidence is the percentage you would bet on your own reach and impact figures. Effort is person-months — one person working for one month, so two people for a fortnight is also one.
Dividing by effort is what makes RICE a ranking rather than a wish list. A change worth twice as much that costs three times as much ranks below the cheaper one, which is usually the right answer and almost never the one the room wants to hear.
Where this number misleads you
RICE scores are only comparable against RICE scores you produced the same way. The number has no absolute meaning — 4,000 is not "good", it is only better than 2,000 scored by the same person on the same scale in the same week. Score a backlog in one sitting, or do not compare the results.
Questions people ask
What is a good RICE score?
There is no universal good score, because the inputs are not on a fixed scale — reach alone can be 50 or 500,000. The score is a sorting key, not a grade. Compare it only against other items you scored the same way, and treat the ranked order as the output rather than any single number.
How do I score confidence in RICE?
Confidence is the percentage you would bet that your reach and impact figures are roughly right. 100% means you have measured it, 80% means you have good evidence, 50% means you are guessing. Anything at or below 50% usually means the honest next step is a week of discovery, not a build.
What is the difference between RICE and ICE?
RICE adds reach and replaces ease with effort, so it needs a real number of affected users and an estimate in person-months. ICE is three judgements on a 1–10 scale and takes seconds per item. Use ICE to sort a long list quickly, and RICE for anything you have to defend to someone else.
When one number is not the job
This page works out one number. PikoPM’s Prioritisation scores your whole backlog at once, from a paste or a Jira board, and writes the argument for the order.
Open Prioritisation — it needs an account, and the Free plan covers it.