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PIE vs ICE vs PXL: which experiment prioritisation framework is right for you?
They’re all three-factor scores. The labels differ; the idea is the same. Pick one your team will actually use, and we’ll show how PIG in Experiment OS fits.
When you have more ideas than you can run, you need a way to rank them. PIE, ICE, and PXL are the most common. Each gives you three scores (1–10), you average them, and you prioritise the highest. The difference is what the three factors are, and what you call them.
PIE
Potential (upside if it works), Importance (how much it matters for goals),Ease (effort to run). Simple and widely known. Good when you want a neutral term like “importance” rather than “confidence.”
ICE
Impact (how much it moves the needle), Confidence (how sure you are it will work),Ease (effort to run). “Confidence” makes the bet explicit: you’re scoring how much you believe it. Popular in growth.
PXL
Potential, XL (experience level) (how ready you are to run it), and sometimesEase. Less standardised; some use it as PIE with “readiness” instead of importance. We don’t have a PXL calculator; the logic is close enough to PIE that you can adapt.
So which one?
There’s no “best.” Use the one your team already knows or the one that fits your language. PIE and ICE are the most common; both map cleanly onto the same idea: upside, how much it matters (or how confident you are), and how easy it is. In Experiment OS we use PIG: Potential, Insight (≈ importance/impact), Graft (≈ ease). Same concept: prioritise the best blend of upside, impact, and doability. Your PIE or ICE scores translate; you’re just naming the factors differently.
Try PIE or ICE, then track in Experiment OS
Score in our PIE or ICE calculators. Add the ones you run as hypotheses in Experiment OS, and take them through the full cycle.
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