ICE Framework: The original prioritisation framework for marketers

The ICE framework is the original scoring system for growth marketing teams. Created by Sean Ellis — the person who coined the term “growth hacking” and author of Hacking Growth — ICE was designed to help teams at companies like LogMeIn and Dropbox decide which experiments to run first. It remains the most widely used prioritisation framework in growth teams today.

Table of contents

What does ICE stand for?

ICE stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease — three factors used to score and rank experiment ideas on a scale of 1 to 10.

• Impact — How much will this move your target metric?
• Confidence — How sure are you it will work?
• Ease — How quickly can you ship it?

Each factor shapes the final ICE score differently depending on your team’s stage and velocity. Read on to see how to weight and calculate them.

How to calculate an ICE score

The ICE score is calculated by averaging the three individual scores:

ICE Score = (Impact + Confidence + Ease) / 3

This gives a final score between 1 and 10. The key is what you do before you plug the numbers in — how you define and calibrate each factor determines whether your rankings are meaningful or misleading. See the worked example and scoring tips below for how to do this in practice.

“Growth hacking is based on the scientific method — having a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis in an experiment, and learning if the hypothesis were true or not.”

Sean Ellis, author of Hacking Growth

Worked example: scoring real marketing experiments

Most teams score ICE wrong in the same way: they give Impact a 9 because an idea feels big, not because they have data. Here is how a real growth team would score four common experiment ideas — and why the highest-impact idea doesn’t always win.

The homepage headline rewrite scores highest — not because it has the biggest potential impact, but because the team has high confidence (backed by customer interview data) and it is easy to execute. The referral programme and onboarding rebuild have higher potential impact but score lower because they require more effort and carry less certainty.

ICE stops teams from always chasing the biggest ideas and surfaces the experiments most likely to deliver results quickly.

When to use the ICE framework

ICE is not the right tool for every team. It works best in three specific situations — and can actively mislead you in others.

• Early-stage growth teams that need a simple, fast way to start prioritising without methodology overhead.
• High-velocity experimentation where you run multiple experiments per week and need quick decisions.
• Cross-functional teams that need a shared scoring language without bogging down in debate.

For teams running experiments at scale or needing to account for audience size, a more structured framework may be a better fit. See the comparison table below.

Strengths of the ICE framework

ICE has survived 15+ years in growth teams for three reasons — and one of them is often underestimated.

• Speed. Three factors, scored 1 to 10. You can score an idea in under a minute.
• Simplicity. No formula to memorise, no training required.
• Forces structured thinking. Even a quick ICE score makes you consider an idea from three angles before committing resources.

The third point matters more than it sounds. Read on for why.

Limitations of the ICE framework

ICE has four well-documented weaknesses. The first is widely known; the fourth catches most teams off guard.

• Subjectivity. Scores are inherently personal — two people can score the same idea very differently, especially on Impact and Confidence.
• No reach factor. ICE ignores how many people an experiment will affect. A high-impact change on a low-traffic page scores the same as one on your highest-traffic page.
• Ease is ambiguous. Does Ease mean time, cost, or complexity? Agree on a definition before your first scoring session.
• Anchoring bias. The first score shared in a group session pulls everyone else toward it.

The RICE framework was built specifically to address the reach limitation — see the comparison below.

Tips for better ICE scoring

1. Define your scoring scale. Before your first scoring session, agree as a team on what a 1 versus a 10 means for each factor. Write it down and reference it in future sessions.

2. Score independently first. Have each team member score the idea on their own before discussing. This prevents anchoring and surfaces genuine disagreements.

3. Discuss outliers. When scores diverge sharply — one person gives Impact a 3 and another gives it an 8 — the team has different assumptions. Talk through these before averaging.

4. Re-score regularly. An idea scored three months ago may need re-scoring as market conditions, team capacity, or priorities shift.

5. Use ICE for ranking, not precision. The scores produce a relative ranking, not exact predictions. Do not agonise over the difference between a 6 and a 7.

ICE vs other prioritisation frameworks

ICE is the simplest framework, but not always the best fit. Here is a quick comparison:

For a detailed comparison of all frameworks, see our guide: How to pick a prioritisation framework.

Getting started with ICE

Pick your top 10 experiment ideas, score each one using ICE in a team session, and run the highest-scoring experiment that week. Do not overthink the methodology — the value of ICE is in building the habit of structured prioritisation, not in achieving perfect scores.

Growth Method is the only work management platform built specifically for growth teams, with ICE scoring built in. Book a call to learn more.

If you are looking for a framework to structure your overall marketing strategy — rather than prioritise individual experiments — the RACE framework is a strong complement to ICE. It maps the full customer journey across Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage stages, giving you the strategic context to decide which stage to focus your experiments on first.