RICE Scoring
Prioritize initiatives objectively using the RICE framework: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.
RICE is a prioritization framework that helps you decide which initiatives to work on first. Evergreen includes built-in RICE scoring for every roadmap initiative.
What is RICE?
RICE stands for:
- Reach — How many pages, users, or sessions does this initiative affect?
- Impact — How much will this improve the outcome for the affected pages?
- Confidence — How confident are you in your Reach and Impact estimates?
- Effort — How much work will this take to complete?
The RICE score is calculated as:
RICE Score = (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort
Higher scores indicate initiatives that deliver more value for less effort.
Scoring Guidelines
Reach
Estimate the number of pages, users, or sessions affected within a defined time period.
- Use your crawl data to count affected pages
- Use GA4 data to estimate affected sessions
- Be specific: "47 pages in the blog section" is better than "many pages"
Impact
Rate the expected improvement on a scale:
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 3 | Massive impact — fixes a critical issue or unlocks significant value |
| 2 | High impact — meaningful improvement to content health or user experience |
| 1 | Medium impact — noticeable improvement |
| 0.5 | Low impact — minor improvement |
| 0.25 | Minimal impact — nice to have |
Confidence
Rate how confident you are in your estimates:
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 100% | High confidence — backed by data and past experience |
| 80% | Medium confidence — some data supports the estimate |
| 50% | Low confidence — mostly intuition, limited data |
Effort
Estimate the work required in person-days, person-weeks, or story points. Use whatever unit your team is comfortable with — just be consistent across initiatives.
Using RICE in Evergreen
- Open an initiative and navigate to the RICE scoring section
- Enter values for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort
- Evergreen calculates the RICE score automatically
- Switch to the Priority View on your roadmap to see initiatives sorted by RICE score
Tips for Effective Scoring
- Use data, not guesses — Evergreen gives you page counts, traffic data, and audit scores. Use them to inform Reach and Impact.
- Be honest about Confidence — Overconfidence leads to misallocation. If you are unsure, score it low.
- Re-score periodically — As you learn more, update scores. A low-confidence estimate today might become high-confidence after more data.
- Compare within context — RICE scores are most useful for comparing initiatives against each other, not as absolute values.
- Do not over-optimize — RICE is a guide, not a rule. Use judgment alongside the scores.
