What is adoption rate?
Adoption rate is the share of your users who took up a product or a specific feature. Product adoption looks at the whole product; feature adoption zooms in on one capability.
It tells you whether what you built is actually being used. A feature can ship to applause and still see low adoption, which is the gap this number exposes.
The formula.
Adoption rate = (users who adopted divided by total users) times 100. Define adopted clearly first, whether that is one use, repeated use, or reaching a specific action.
Keep the definition consistent across periods so the trend is comparable. The same calculation works for product, feature, or user adoption depending on what you put in.
A worked example.
A feature is used by 350 of your 1,000 active users. Adoption rate is 350 divided by 1,000, times 100, which is 35%.
What is a good adoption rate?
There is no universal number, because it depends entirely on the feature and how central it is. A core workflow should see high adoption; a niche power-user feature will not, and that can be fine. The useful read is the trend over time and the comparison between features, not a fixed target.
Adoption is only worth chasing if it leads to retention. Reading it next to whether adoption turns into retention keeps the focus on usage that lasts.
How to improve it.
Surface the feature where the user already is, show its value in the first interaction, and cut the steps between intent and first use. Adoption follows obvious, in-context value.
The other half is who you bring in to begin with. Users who arrived for the exact problem you solve adopt faster, which is why it pays to bring in users who stick.