Hypotize wordmarkOpen the app

ICE framework · Free calculator

ICE prioritization: guide, calculator, and product formula

Score Impact, Confidence, and Ease without hiding the arithmetic. Compare the documented average used by GrowthHackers with Hypotize's implementation and the widely published multiplicative variant.

What it is and where it came from

A relative ranking tool, not an automatic decision

ICE was popularized for growth-experiment prioritization by Sean Ellis and the GrowthHackers team. GrowthHackers' product documentation scores each dimension from 1 to 10 and averages the three estimates. Multiplication is a common later variant, not the only documented formula.

Source: GrowthHackers: Prioritizing your ideas with ICE

Dimensions

What each letter must make explicit

Impact

Expected effect on the goal metric if the idea works.

Guardrail: Anchor the score to a named metric and audience.

Confidence

Strength of evidence behind the expected impact.

Guardrail: Use research, prior tests, or observed behavior; enthusiasm is not evidence.

Ease

How quickly and cheaply the idea can be implemented and tested.

Guardrail: Include design, engineering, operations, dependencies, and measurement work.

Formula disclosure

Documented method and Hypotize method

Source method

(Impact + Confidence + Ease) ÷ 3

Hypotize

(Impact + Confidence + Ease) ÷ 3

The documented average and Hypotize produce the same 1–10 score. Multiplying the same inputs produces a 1–1000 variant. Multiplication and averaging are not generally order-equivalent: two ideas with the same sum can have different products, so teams should name the method they use.

Deterministic · No account required

Compare both calculations

Inputs stay in this browser. Nothing is sent to Hypotize by this calculator.

Documented source units

1 = minimal, 10 = very high

1 = weak evidence, 10 = strong evidence

1 = difficult, 10 = easy

Documented average

7

Hypotize input scale

Hypotize input, 1–10

Hypotize input, 1–10

Hypotize input, 1–10

Hypotize score

7

Multiplicative variant using these inputs: 336

Worked example

One experiment, reproducible arithmetic

A pricing-page social-proof test scored Impact 8, Confidence 6, and Ease 7 returns 7.00 by both the documented average and Hypotize. The multiplicative variant would return 336, which is a different scale and can produce a different ordering.

Decision rules

When to use ICE, and when not to

Use it when

  • You need to rank many growth ideas quickly.
  • Impact and confidence can be discussed on a shared 1–10 rubric.
  • Ease is a useful proxy for near-term execution cost.

Do not let it decide when

  • Reach varies radically between ideas and must be explicit.
  • Effort needs a real time or staffing unit.
  • A regulatory, strategic, or dependency constraint overrides score order.

Common input failures

  • Uncalibrated teams cluster every dimension around 7 or 8.
  • Ease can reward small work over strategically important work.
  • Confidence becomes optimism unless each score points to evidence.

Product behavior

Exactly what Hypotize does

Hypotize calculates the arithmetic mean and keeps the score on a 1–10 scale. The web app stores the framework and priority score; its dedicated MCP scoring operation is hypotize_ice_vote_upsert, which records the current user's 1–10 ICE vote and recalculates priority. The product does not use the multiplicative variant.

A score is one field in the experiment record. It does not execute a test, prove a hypothesis, or replace owner, state, evidence, outcome, learning, and next step.

Choose the right lens

The same pricing experiment in three rubrics

FrameworkExample inputsHypotize resultBest question
ICE8, 6, 77.00What is impactful, evidenced, and easy?
PIE8, 7, 67.00Which conversion opportunity matters?
RICE8, 7, 6, 3112.00How much impact per unit of effort?

Keep the context

A score is useful when its reasoning survives

Read the experiment memory guideReview MCP boundariesPIE guideRICE guideOpen the web app

Reviewed 29 August 2026. Source links identify the documented method; product behavior is derived from the current Hypotize framework configuration and calculator implementation.