How Do I Measure Progress When Building an App?

I've built dozens of apps over the past nine years and one of the most common questions clients ask me—usually around week three when the initial excitement wears off—is "how do we actually know if we're making good progress?" It's a fair question because app development isn't like building a house where you can literally see the walls going up. Sure, you might get some screenshots or a test build on your phone, but is that actually progress or are we just spinning our wheels? The answer is complicated because measuring development progress properly requires tracking things that aren't always visible to people outside the development team.

When I started building apps, I made the mistake of thinking that tracking progress was simple—count the features we've built and divide by the features we need to build. Done, right? Wrong. That approach led to projects that looked 80% complete for months because we hadn't accounted for the fact that some features take three days to build while others take three weeks. I learned pretty quickly that without proper project tracking and meaningful progress metrics, you're basically guessing whether you'll hit your launch date or not.

The worst position to be in is realising your app is behind schedule two weeks before launch when you've already booked your marketing campaign and told your investors about the timeline.

This guide will show you how to measure development progress in ways that actually reflect reality—not the sanitised version your development team might present in status meetings. We'll cover setting up app milestones that make sense, tracking technical work without drowning in developer jargon, and spotting the warning signs that mean you need to adjust your approach. Its based on real projects I've worked on, including a healthcare app that went three months over schedule because we measured the wrong things, and a fintech app that launched early because we got our development monitoring right from day one.

Understanding What Actually Matters in App Development

Most people starting an app project get fixated on the wrong metrics from day one. I've watched clients obsess over how many features they can pack into version one or how quickly they can get to the app stores, when honestly those aren't the things that determine whether your app succeeds or fails. After building apps across healthcare, fintech and e-commerce for nearly a decade, I can tell you the metrics that actually matter are quite different from what most people think. Before you even start measuring progress, it's crucial to understand which foundational tasks need to be completed to set your project up for success.

The first thing you need to track is user value delivery—basically, how quickly can someone achieve what they downloaded your app to do? I worked on a healthcare booking app where the client wanted 15 different features in the first release. We stripped it back to just three core functions: book appointment, view records, get reminders. That app hit 70% user retention after 30 days because users could complete their main task in under 90 seconds. The version with 15 features? We tested it internally and people gave up before finishing the onboarding.

You also need to measure technical foundation quality, not just feature completion. I mean, sure, its exciting when your development team says "we've finished 60% of the features!" but if that codebase is a mess underneath? You'll pay for it later. On a fintech project, we spent an extra three weeks setting up proper error logging and monitoring systems—the client wasn't thrilled about the delay—but when we launched and caught a critical payment processing bug within hours instead of days, they understood why that groundwork mattered. The technology choices you make early in the project significantly impact this foundation quality, so it's worth understanding how to choose the right tech stack from the beginning.

The Metrics That Tell the Real Story

Here's what I track on every project, and what you should be watching too:

• Time to complete core user journey (not total features built)
• Technical debt indicators like code review comments and refactoring needs
• Test coverage percentage on critical user paths
• API response times and error rates during development
• Actual user feedback from beta testing, not just internal team opinions

The thing about app development progress is that it's not linear. You might spend two weeks on something users never see—like setting up proper database indexing—but that work prevents your app from grinding to a halt when you hit 10,000 users. I've seen too many apps launch fast and then collapse under real-world usage because the team measured progress in features shipped rather than foundation built. That's a really expensive mistake to make, trust me.

Setting Up Your Project Milestones the Right Way

Here's the thing about milestones—most people set them completely wrong. They pick arbitrary dates based on what sounds good in a meeting rather than what actually makes sense for the development work. I've seen projects with milestones like "Complete App" or "Finish Design Phase" which tell you absolutely nothing about real progress. The best milestones I set up these days are tied to specific user-facing features that can be tested and validated, not internal development tasks that nobody outside the team understands.

When I worked on a healthcare appointment booking app, we didn't set a milestone called "Database Setup Complete." Instead, we had "Patients Can View Available Appointment Slots"—something that could be demonstrated, tested with real users, and provided actual value. Each milestone should represent a tangible piece of functionality that moves you closer to launch. This approach means your stakeholders can literally see and interact with progress rather than just reading status reports that say everything's on track (even when its not).

The structure I use now breaks projects into two-week sprints with milestones every four to six weeks. This gives enough time to build something meaningful but keeps the feedback loops tight enough that you wont waste months going in the wrong direction. For a fintech app we built, our first major milestone was "Users Can Link Their Bank Account and See Balance"—not perfect, not polished, but functional enough to validate the core concept. The second milestone added transaction history, the third introduced spending categorisation... you see how each one builds on the last?

Link each milestone to a specific user story or feature rather than technical tasks. "Users can create an account and log in" is infinitely better than "Authentication system complete" because you can actually test whether it works for real people.

Breaking Down Complex Features Into Measurable Steps

Big features need to be split up or you'll have milestones that take three months to hit, which defeats the entire purpose. When we built a social media feed feature for an e-commerce app, we didn't make "Social Feed Complete" a single milestone. We broke it into "Users Can View Feed," then "Users Can Post Content," then "Users Can Comment and Like," and finally "Feed Algorithm Shows Personalised Content." Each step took about two weeks and could be tested independently. This meant we caught a major performance issue after the first milestone when we realised the feed loaded too slowly with more than fifty items—imagine if we'd only discovered that after building all four parts?

Setting Dependencies and Critical Path Items

Some milestones can happen in parallel, others cannot start until previous ones finish. This is where project tracking gets properly tricky because one delayed milestone can cascade into five others. Payment integration always needs to happen before you can test checkout flows, for example. User authentication needs to work before you can build personalised features. I map these dependencies out visually now (nothing fancy, just boxes and arrows) so everyone can see what's blocking what. On an education platform we built, we had three separate development tracks running simultaneously—content management, video streaming, and user progress tracking—but they all converged at a single milestone where everything needed to work together. That convergence point became our most closely monitored date because if any track ran late, the whole timeline shifted.

Tracking Technical Progress Without Getting Lost in Details

Look, I get it—when your development team starts throwing around terms like "completed 47 story points this sprint" or "reduced technical debt by 23%", your eyes might glaze over a bit. Been there, seen that happen countless times with clients. But here's the thing: you don't need to understand every technical detail to track whether your app is actually progressing. You just need the right markers.

What I've learned from building apps across healthcare, fintech and retail is that focusing on working features beats tracking abstract metrics every single time. I mean, sure, your developers might tell you they've written 5,000 lines of code this week... but does the login screen actually work yet? Can users browse products? That's what matters. When we built a prescription management app for a pharmacy chain, we tracked progress by counting completed user journeys—not code commits or branch merges. Could a patient search for their medication? Check. Could they schedule pickup? Done. Could they pay securely? Sorted. Each of these represented real value, not just busy work.

What to Actually Monitor

I always tell clients to track these specific things, because they've never let me down:

• Working features you can physically test on a device (not "80% complete" features that don't actually function)
• Build stability—how often does the app crash when you open it? More than once per session is a red flag
• Screen completion rates—what percentage of planned screens are done and connected properly?
• API integration status—are third-party services like payment processors or mapping actually talking to your app?
• Test coverage on core flows—can someone walk through your apps main purpose without hitting errors?

The best progress tracking system I've used is dead simple: a shared document (honestly, even a spreadsheet works) listing every major feature with three columns—Not Started, In Progress, Done. But—and this is crucial—"Done" only counts when I can test it on my phone. Not when the developer says its done. Not when it works on their machine. When I can physically use it. This saved us months of confusion on an e-commerce project where the team kept marking features complete that were technically coded but completely unusable for actual shopping. You know what? The client appreciated that honesty, even if it meant admitting we were behind schedule. Better to know the truth early than discover it at launch.

Measuring Team Performance and Velocity

Here's what I've learned about measuring how fast teams actually build apps—it's not about lines of code or hours logged. Those numbers look impressive in reports but they don't tell you much about real progress. I mean, a developer could write thousands of lines of terrible code in a day, right? What actually matters is completed features that work properly and can be shown to users. Having the right team members in place is crucial for maintaining consistent velocity and quality output.

The metric I rely on most is story points completed per sprint; basically, how many features or tasks the team finishes in a two-week period. When we worked on a healthcare booking app, the team's velocity started at about 20 points per sprint and gradually increased to 35 as they got familiar with the codebase and each others working styles. That consistency is what you're looking for—not necessarily speed, but predictability. If your team completes 30 points one sprint and 10 the next, somethings wrong with how you're estimating or planning. One factor that significantly impacts this consistency is how quickly your team communicates and responds to issues.

Velocity isn't about going faster, its about knowing exactly how fast you're already going so you can plan accurately

I also track bug-to-feature ratio because a team that's churning out features but creating loads of bugs isn't actually being productive. On a fintech project we worked on, the team was hitting their velocity targets but the QA team was logging 15-20 bugs per sprint. We had to slow down feature development to focus on code quality...and honestly, it meant we delivered two weeks later than planned but with a much more stable product. Sometimes going slower is actually going faster, if that makes sense? The other thing worth tracking is code review turnaround time—if pull requests are sitting for days waiting for review, that's a bottleneck that'll kill your velocity faster than anything else.

Keeping Stakeholders Informed Throughout Development

I learned this the hard way years ago—stakeholders who don't know whats happening become anxious stakeholders, and anxious stakeholders start making decisions based on fear rather than facts. The key is regular, digestible updates that show progress without overwhelming people with technical jargon they don't need. I use a simple approach: weekly status emails that take about 10 minutes to read and cover three things—what we completed, what we're working on now, and any blockers that need attention. No fluff. Just facts.

But here's the thing—different stakeholders need different information. Your CEO doesn't care that we refactored the API layer; they want to know if we're on track for launch. Your marketing lead needs to know when they can start planning campaigns. Your investors want to see user testing results and engagement metrics. I've built custom dashboards for clients where each stakeholder logs in and sees exactly what matters to them—budget burn rate for finance, feature completion for product, performance metrics for technical leads.

Show, Don't Just Tell

Numbers and bullet points are fine but nothing beats actually showing progress. Every two weeks I do a demo session where stakeholders can see the app working, tap through new features, and give immediate feedback. These sessions are gold because they catch misalignments early. I worked on a fintech app where the client assumed "transaction history" meant a simple list; when they saw our first build they realised they needed filtering, search, and export functions. Catching that at week 4 instead of week 12 saved us about three weeks of rework.

Being Honest About Problems

The hardest part? Telling stakeholders when things aren't going well. But I've learned that hiding problems only makes them worse. If we discover the third-party payment API we planned to use doesn't support a feature we need, I tell them immediately along with two or three alternative solutions. Transparency builds trust—and trust means stakeholders back you when tough decisions need making.

When to Adjust Your Timeline and Budget

The toughest conversations I have with clients usually happen around the 60-70% mark of a project. That's when reality sets in and we need to talk about whether the original timeline and budget still make sense. I've had projects where a healthcare app needed an extra three months because regulatory requirements changed mid-development; I've also seen e-commerce builds finish early because the client cut features that weren't actually needed. The trick is knowing which situation you're in before its too late. Understanding the ongoing costs of app maintenance helps set realistic expectations about long-term budget requirements too.

I look for three specific triggers that signal it's time to reassess. First, if your sprint velocity has dropped below 70% of your baseline for two consecutive sprints, something's wrong—maybe the technical complexity was underestimated or your team needs different resources. Second, if scope creep has added more than 15-20% to your feature list, you need to either add time and budget or start cutting. Third, if you're consistently finding major bugs or architectural issues that require rework, that's your codebase telling you to slow down and fix the foundation before building higher.

Common Scenarios That Require Timeline Adjustments

• Third-party API integration taking longer than expected because documentation was poor or endpoints keep changing
• Platform updates (like iOS or Android releases) requiring unexpected rework of existing features
• User testing revealing fundamental UX issues that need proper redesign, not just quick fixes
• Security audits uncovering vulnerabilities that must be addressed before launch
• Key team members leaving mid-project, requiring knowledge transfer time

Here's what most people get wrong: they wait until they've blown the budget to have this conversation. But if you're tracking your burn rate properly, you should see trouble coming at least 4-6 weeks out. I usually recommend having a formal checkpoint meeting when you hit 50% of budget spent—if you haven't delivered 40-50% of features by then, you need to make decisions now, not later when you've got no room to manoeuvre.

Set aside a 10-15% contingency buffer at the start of every project, but don't tell your team about it. This gives you breathing room for the inevitable surprises without having to go back to stakeholders for more money every time something unexpected happens.

Making the Call: Extend or Cut Scope?

I've learned that extending timeline is almost always better than rushing to hit an arbitrary deadline with half-baked features. A fintech app I worked on had to push launch by six weeks because we discovered the payment processing integration needed additional security layers—shipping without those would have been catastrophic. The client wasn't happy about the delay, but they were a lot happier than they would've been dealing with a security breach three months after launch.

When budget constraints mean you can't extend, you need to ruthlessly prioritise. I use a simple framework: what features are legally required (compliance stuff you can't skip), what features are core to the value proposition (the reason people download your app), and what features are nice-to-have that can wait for version 1.1. That third category is usually 30-40% of the original scope, and cutting it can save you months of development time without actually hurting the product. Sometimes certain app features can trigger regulatory scrutiny, making timeline adjustments necessary to ensure compliance.

Quality Metrics That Show You're Building Something People Will Use

I'm going to be honest here—most development teams track the wrong things when they're measuring quality. They obsess over code coverage percentages and automated test counts, which are fine I suppose, but they don't tell you if you're building something people will actually want to use. Over the years I've learned that quality isn't just about whether the code works; its about whether it works for real humans in real situations.

The first metric I look at during development is crash-free rate, and I want it above 99.5% before we even think about launch. But here's where most teams mess up—they wait until beta testing to start tracking this. We start monitoring crashes from the very first internal build because catching memory leaks and null pointer exceptions early saves us weeks of debugging later. On a fintech app we built, we discovered a crash that only happened when users had more than 50 transactions in their history; if we'd waited for public beta, that would've been a disaster for our power users.

Load times matter more than people think. We measure time-to-interactive for every screen, and anything over 2 seconds gets flagged for optimisation. Users won't tell you your app feels slow—they'll just delete it. I've seen gorgeous apps with brilliant features fail because they took 4 seconds to load the home screen. That's not acceptable anymore. The psychological impact of these interactions is significant—understanding how neuroscience affects app design can help you create more engaging experiences that keep users coming back.

Task completion rate is where things get interesting because this tells you if your design actually works. We set up analytics to track how many users successfully complete key actions—making a purchase, booking an appointment, whatever the core function is. If less than 70% of users who start a task finish it? Something's broken in your flow, and it probably isn't the code.

Real User Behaviour Tells the Truth

I also track what I call "friction points" during development. These are spots where users hesitate, backtrack, or abandon the app entirely. We use session recordings (with permission obviously) and heatmaps even in TestFlight builds to see where people get confused. On an e-commerce app, we noticed users repeatedly tapping a product image thinking it would zoom—it didn't. That tiny interaction issue was costing conversions, but traditional testing wouldn't have caught it.

Network error handling gets measured separately because your app needs to work when the user's on a dodgy connection. I test every app on 3G speeds—yes, really—because not everyone has perfect WiFi. If your app becomes unusable when the network stutters, you've lost a huge chunk of potential users who commute on the tube or live in areas with spotty coverage.

Beta Testing Metrics That Actually Matter

When we move into beta testing, I focus on daily active users versus total installs. If people download your beta and never open it again, that's a massive red flag. We aim for at least 40% DAU in beta; anything less means we haven't given testers a reason to keep coming back. And honestly, if your beta testers aren't engaged, your real users definitely won't be. During this phase, tracking personalised app performance metrics becomes crucial for understanding how different user segments interact with your features.

Retention curves tell you more about quality than any other single metric. I look at day 1, day 7, and day 30 retention even during development. For most apps, if you can keep 40% of users after day 1 and 20% after day 7, you're on the right track. These numbers vary by category—a game might need higher day 1 retention whilst a utility app might have lower but more stable long-term retention.

User feedback during beta isn't just about collecting bug reports; its about understanding sentiment. We categorise feedback into usability issues, feature requests, and technical problems. If more than 30% of feedback is about usability, your UX needs work before launch. I've delayed launches because the feedback told us users fundamentally didn't understand how to use the app, and pushing forward would've been throwing money away on user acquisition for an app that wasn't ready.

Performance benchmarks against competitors give you context for your metrics. We test rival apps alongside ours, measuring their load times, crash rates, and interaction patterns. This isn't about copying—its about understanding what the market expects. If every other banking app loads in under 1.5 seconds and yours takes 3, you're already losing before users even see your features.

Spotting Warning Signs Before They Become Problems

After building apps for healthcare companies, fintech startups, and e-commerce brands, I've gotten pretty good at spotting the early warning signs that a project is heading off track. The thing is, most problems don't appear overnight—they build up slowly until one day you realise you're three weeks behind and nobody knows quite how it happened.

One pattern I see constantly is when developers stop asking questions. Seriously, if your team goes quiet and just says "yes" to everything, that's a red flag. It usually means they're stuck but don't want to admit it, or they've stopped caring about the details. I worked on an e-commerce app where the backend team went silent for two weeks—turned out they'd hit a major API integration issue but didn't want to raise it. Cost us a month in the end.

The most dangerous projects are the ones where everything seems fine until suddenly it isn't

Watch your velocity metrics like a hawk. If your team was completing 8 story points per sprint and suddenly they're at 3 or 4, something's wrong. Maybe the tasks are more complex than estimated, maybe there's technical debt slowing them down, or maybe someone's struggling. Don't wait for the retrospective to dig into it.

Another warning sign? When testing keeps getting pushed back. I mean, if you hear "we'll test it properly next sprint" more than once, you've got a problem brewing. On a fintech project we built, the team kept deprioritising security testing because they were behind on features. When we finally did the penetration testing, we found issues that took three weeks to fix—issues that would've been caught earlier with regular testing cycles. If your app needs regulatory approval, understanding the testing requirements for submission is crucial for avoiding last-minute delays.

Pay attention to your standup meetings too. If they're getting longer and more detailed, or if people are consistently blocked by the same issues, that's your project telling you something needs to change. The best time to fix these things is before they become actual problems, not after.

Conclusion

Look, measuring progress when building an app isn't rocket science but it does require you to be honest with yourself about whats actually happening. I've seen projects where everything looked great on paper—every milestone ticked off, every sprint completed on schedule—but the app itself was heading in completely the wrong direction because nobody was measuring the right things. And I've seen projects that looked messy and chaotic from the outside but were actually producing something brilliant because the team was focused on user value rather than arbitrary deadlines.

The key thing I've learned over the years is that measuring progress is really about balancing three things at once; keeping your technical development on track, making sure your team is working efficiently without burning out, and ensuring what you're building is actually going to solve real problems for real people. Its not enough to just track code commits or count completed features. You need to look at quality metrics, user feedback from beta testing, and those early engagement signals that tell you whether people will actually use what you're creating.

One thing I always tell clients is that measuring progress doesn't stop when you launch. The apps I've worked on that became genuinely successful were the ones where we continued measuring user behaviour, retention rates, and feature usage long after release. That data informed everything we did next—which features to improve, what to remove, where to invest development time. Building an app is never really finished; you're just moving from one phase of measurement to the next, constantly learning and adapting based on what the data tells you about how people actually use your product in the wild.