Custom benchmarks
A benchmark built around what matters to your members and clients.
Turn your expertise into findings your members and clients can use. Add questions alongside one of our indices, or build an index around your own subject. Both give participants their own findings and show you where they need support.
The two routes
Build on ours. Or create your own.
Both routes run under your name and include Overview for aggregate insight. One annual partner licence supports all your indices, with a separate fee for each. Choose according to what you want to understand and the comparisons you need.
-
Route oneStatus and version vary by index
Add your questions to one of our indices
Start with one of our indices and add a small set of your own questions when you sign. The core stays fixed for each version; your questions sit alongside it.
- 01Its core answers join the shared pool, which is what makes sector and region comparisons possible as it grows.
- 02Participants get their own findings and next steps. Overview gives you aggregate insight, including responses to your additional questions. Named organisation findings need Portfolio and the organisation’s permission to share.
- 03Your questions cover topics around the core. If you need different dimensions or scoring, choose an index of your own.
- One licence, all indices
- £3,000a year, with Overview
- Per index you run
- £1,000a year
Per year£4,000+VAT
Discuss additional questionsChoose this when an existing index fits your purpose. Each additional available index costs £1,000 a year; you pay the partner licence only once.
-
Route twoFrom £6,000 once per index
Your own index
An index designed with your subject experts, around what your members or clients need to understand. Together we define its purpose, dimensions, questions, scoring and recommendations. You bring the subject expertise and approve the method. We provide the research process and platform.
It could be a self-assessment against your competency framework, code of practice or professional standards, a maturity check in your specialism, or a check that shows each member or client where to focus their development.
- 01Your index, licensed to you alone while you pay for it. Your name is on it, and no other partner may run it.
- 02It sits outside the shared pool, because nobody else asks its questions: you buy ownership rather than an external benchmark. Overview helps you understand patterns across your own participants.
- 03Read findings against your index’s own bands and your previous results, allowing for any change in the index version or in who took part.
- Design, once
- From £6,000
- One licence, all indices
- £3,000a year, with Overview
- Per index you run
- £1,000a year
First yearFrom £10,000+VAT, then £4,000 a year
Discuss your own indexChoose this when your purpose needs its own method. Custom indices follow the same research programme as ours and must meet the standard before being labelled Live.
Build on a shared core, or create a method around your expertise.
How a bespoke index is built
Design. Launch. Run.
Your expertise shapes the index. Our research programme tests how it works, and the platform supports delivery and repeat participation. Here is what each stage involves.
01 Design Define what your index measures
Working sessions with your subject experts establish what the index should reveal and how participants can use the findings. We turn that into dimensions, questions and scoring to test through research beta. You approve each step.
What we need from you
- Access to your subject experts for working sessions and review.
- What you want the index to change for the people who take it.
- Any framework, standard or method you already work to.
What you approve
- The purpose, and the dimensions it breaks into.
- Every question, in its final wording.
- The scoring, the bands, and the recommendations shown against each.
What you get back
- A documented method, in your name, licensed to you alone.
- We test whether the questions cover the subject, make sense to participants and produce findings people can act on. Custom indices use the same research programme as ours, including web probing, cognitive testing and AI interviews, with human review before Live status.
- A specimen result, so you see what a participant will see before anyone does.
-
02 Launch
Put it in front of your audience
We configure your branding, invitations, results, reports and partner access. Your index carries your name from first question to final report.
-
03 Run
Keep it working over time
The platform collects responses, delivers findings and supports repeat participation. Use Overview to see what your participants need, and return to the findings as practice develops.
An example bespoke result
Findings that start a useful conversation.
This fictional Systems Resilience Index shows how an MSP could measure its clients’ ability to cope with disruption. Five dimensions turn a broad concern into specific areas to discuss, helping clients and advisers decide where to focus.
The example uses invented data. Its bands belong to this index; they are not a comparison with an external benchmark pool. Repeat findings can inform progress discussions where the method and participant group remain comparable.
Organisation result · 2026Illustrative specimen · fictional data
Systems Resilience Index
Five dimensions, up to 20 each.
Band: Steady
Recommended next. Monitoring and alerting. Supplier dependence. Map which suppliers a bad week depends on, and agree who is alerted when the first thing fails.
Who it's for
For partners with expertise to share, and members or clients to support.
-
Membership bodies
Measure the priorities and practices of your sector in language your members recognise. Members get findings of their own; the aggregate shows you where to put services, learning and support. You can publish the findings as your own benchmark report and sponsor it if you choose: the income is yours, and Benchmark Lab takes no share. An index of your own could run your competency framework as a self-assessment, show a member where to focus their CPD, or where they stand against your membership criteria and what the next grade asks of them.
-
Consultancies and specialists
Turn your specialist method into a repeatable index under your name. Give clients a starting point for discussion, identify areas for support and revisit their findings as an engagement develops.
-
MSPs and advisory firms
Use an available index where it fits your clients’ needs, or build around your own expertise in areas such as resilience, security or governance. Use the findings to shape your advice and support.
Terms
What the fees cover.
One £3,000 licence a year, with Overview, covers every index you run. Each of ours is £1,000 a year; one of your own is from £6,000 once, plus £1,000 a year, and covers up to 3,000 first completions a year; above that, the work is scoped and quoted on the same basis. The design fee is confirmed after we have reviewed the complexity of your requirements. Ours are never capped.
Every figure is +VAT, and the minimum term is twelve months. Founding rates hold for partners signed before 4 November 2027. Portfolio, the monthly option and what the price buys are on the founding rates page.
Enquire
What would you like to understand?
Tell us what you want to understand, how you would use the findings and roughly how many people would take part. We reply within two working days with a view on which route fits and what it involves.
Opens the enquiry form, with “Running your own index on the platform” already selected.