The challenge of mapping ROI to specific features

“What’s the ROI of that feature?”

If you’ve worked in Product for more than five minutes, you’ve heard this question. And fair enough - businesses want to understand where their investment is going and what return they can expect.

But calculating ROI at the feature level is rarely simple. Here’s why and how we’re tackling it at Product Seed.

1. Features don’t exist in isolation, and value depends on context

A feature’s impact often depends on what ships around it. It might be part of a larger initiative, rely on foundational work, or only deliver value when combined with other changes. Sequencing, scope shifts, and dependencies all influence outcomes.

How we’re solving it:

We frame work as initiatives - connected pieces of value with shared goals. Our AI models suggest groupings of your existing tickets (e.g. from Jira) based on context, past behaviour, and dependencies, so you don’t have to manually piece things together.

2. Data is unclear or missing at the start

You’re estimating with limited input. It’s not always obvious which metrics matter, how to calculate potential impact, or where to pull data from.

How we’re solving it:

We help PMs express assumptions clearly, then support them with relevant benchmarks, historical data, and insights pulled from your connected tools - including your CRM - all surfaced automatically through contextual AI, so you’re not chasing numbers across tabs.

3. Attribution is murky and hard to maintain

Even when something works, it’s rarely obvious why. Revenue changes for many reasons. Features overlap. And most attribution ends up being best guess.

How we’re solving it:

Product Seed connects to tools like your CRM and analytics stack to align product decisions with commercial context - including sales pipeline data. It suggests relevant business outcomes and performance signals based on historical inputs, helping you track real-world impact without needing to manually tag everything.

4. Tracking is fragmented and often forgotten

Once something ships, it’s common to move on. Metrics get lost. No one follows up on whether expectations were met - and nothing feeds back into the next round of prioritisation.

How we’re solving it:

Product Seed continuously monitors performance signals over time, comparing them to expectations, highlighting gaps, and feeding the learning back into your future ROI inputs.

5. ROI work spans multiple teams

Finance owns modelling. Data builds dashboards. Product sets direction. Without someone gluing it all together, alignment falls apart fast.

How we’re solving it:

Product Seed creates a shared workspace where inputs are structured but flexible. PMs can own it end-to-end, or bring in Finance, Data, and others depending on how your team is set up. No extra overhead - just better collaboration.

6. Feature-level ROI can be misleading

As Chris Lema points out, ROI is easiest to measure when the outcome is direct - like new revenue from a pricing tier or market expansion. But most product work delivers value in less obvious ways: improving efficiency, reducing churn, unlocking growth later on.

How we’re solving it:

With Product Seed, everything can be mapped to ROI - even when it’s not revenue. That might mean reduced support load, operational efficiency, or long-term retention impact. We support flexible ROI dimensions and confidence scoring, so teams can connect value to business outcomes without forcing made-up numbers. It’s about aligning around real impact, whether direct or indirect.

7. Recency bias and shifting priorities break continuity

We often forget what was promised, what shipped, and whether it worked. Prioritisation becomes reactive, and teams miss the chance to improve.

How we’re solving it:

Product Seed keeps a record of assumptions and performance, and uses that data to improve future forecasts. The more you use it, the better it gets at helping you spot what’s worth building next.

Some PMs do all of this manually - spreadsheets, Notion docs, back-and-forth with analytics. It works, but it’s exhausting. We think there’s a better way.

If product teams are expected to deliver outcomes, we need tools that actually support outcome thinking, without all the duct tape.

How does your team handle ROI today? 

Do you track it by feature, initiative, or not at all?

Coming soon:

• What financial fluency for PMs really looks like

• How we’re building differently and integrating with existing tools

Stay in the loop

Follow me on LinkedIn and Product Seed to stay updated on progress towards our prototype, and sign up on productseed.com to be the first inline to take it for a spin!