Set up scoring
How to set up lead scoring rules
Add positive and negative scoring rules across intent, firmographic, and behavioral signals so every lead gets a transparent 0–100 score and an A–D grade the moment it lands.
Updated June 2026
Lead scoring ranks your inbound leads by how well they fit your ideal customer and how engaged they are, so reps work the most promising leads first instead of just the newest. In KudosCRM, scoring is rule-based and transparent: you write the rules, each lead gets a 0–100 score, and that score rolls up to an A–D grade you can read at a glance.
This guide walks you through building a scoring model from scratch — for example one that rewards a demo request from a mid-market company and penalizes a free-mail address. Because the model is just rules you control, identical inputs always produce the same score, and you can open any lead to see exactly which rules matched.
Who this is for
Admins and RevOps setting up qualification for the first time, or tuning a model that's grown stale. No data science required — if you can describe your ideal buyer, you can score for it.
Before you start
- A KudosCRM account with permission to manage scoring rules.
- A rough definition of your ideal customer (company size, industry, the signals that say 'in-market').
- Leads flowing in from capture, so there's something to score.
How scoring works in KudosCRM today
Scoring is transparent and rule-based — not predictive or AI. You score on the signals you feed the lead through forms, the API, and automation. Automatic page-visit and email-engagement tracking, plus score-threshold automation, are on the roadmap (shown with a 'Soon' pill) rather than live, so build rules around the data you actually capture today.
Build your scoring model, step by step
Open the scoring rules
Go to Settings → Lead scoring. You'll see the list of scoring rules and the grade thresholds. A fresh workspace starts empty — every point a lead earns will come from a rule you add here.
Add a firmographic fit rule
Create a rule that adds points for an ideal-fit trait — for example +15 when company size is 50–500, or +10 when the industry matches a target vertical. Firmographic rules score fit, separate from interest, so good-fit accounts rise even before they engage.
Add an intent rule
Add a rule that rewards a buying signal you capture — for example +25 for a demo request or a pricing-page form. Intent is the clearest sign someone is in-market, so these rules usually carry the most weight.
Add a behavioral rule
Score engagement signals your stack passes in — for example +5 when a tracked activity or signal is recorded on the lead. Feed these via forms, the API, or a workflow; KudosCRM scores whatever you send it.
Add a negative rule
Subtract points for poor-fit traits so they don't float to the top — for example −20 for a free-mail domain, a competitor, or a student title. Negative rules keep the A grades meaningful.
Set your A–D thresholds
Confirm the grade bands: A at 80+, B at 60+, C at 40+, and D below. The number is for tuning the model; the grade is the at-a-glance read reps use to decide who to call first.
Save and let the base re-score
Save the model. KudosCRM re-grades the whole lead base in one coalesced pass, so your change is reflected everywhere immediately — no manual recalculation. From now on, new leads are scored the instant they arrive.
Check a lead's point breakdown
Open any lead — say Sarah Mitchell at Apex Technologies — and review the breakdown. Every rule that matched is listed with the points it contributed, so you can sanity-check the model and explain a grade to a skeptical rep.
What you get
- Every lead scored 0–100 and graded A–D the moment it lands, with no manual triage.
- A transparent, per-rule breakdown on every lead — no black-box scores.
- A model that re-grades the whole base instantly whenever you change a rule.
- A ranked list reps can open and work top-down, instead of guessing which lead is hot.
Related articles
Route leads to the right rep
Now that leads are scored, send each one to the right owner automatically with routing rules.
Read articleGrades & lifecycle stages
How the A–D grade works and how a lead moves through lead → MQL → SQL.
Read articleLead scoring & routing
See everything the scoring and routing engine does, on the feature page.
Read articleLead Qualification overview
The full journey stage — score, grade, route, and hand off to the pipeline.
Read articleLead qualification is the second stop in the KudosCRM journey — scoring, grading, and routing every captured lead to the right rep. See the full picture on the Lead Qualification platform overview.
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