Ansoff Growth Path Planner
Compare all four Ansoff growth paths on risk-adjusted revenue, profit, and payback, and pick your lead bet.
Example scenario—not a forecast or verified benchmark. Enable JavaScript to edit inputs, view charts, save locally and export your analysis.
Example inputs
- Current annual revenue
- 3,000,000
- Contribution margin on new revenue
- 35
- Market penetration: added annual revenue at maturity
- 450,000
- Market penetration: one-time investment
- 60,000
- Product development: added annual revenue
- 600,000
- Product development: one-time investment
- 150,000
- Product development: capability fit (1-5)
- 3
- Market development: added annual revenue
- 800,000
- Market development: one-time investment
- 250,000
- Market development: capability fit (1-5)
- 3
- Diversification: added annual revenue
- 1,200,000
- Diversification: one-time investment
- 500,000
- Diversification: capability fit (1-5)
- 2
Example results
Lead with market penetration: $383K of risk-adjusted annual revenue (12.8% growth) and $342K expected 3-year profit on a $60K investment.
- Recommended lead path
- Market penetration
- Risk-adjusted added revenue (lead path)
- $382,500
- Expected 3-yr net profit (lead path)
- $341,625
- Payback (lead path)
- 5.4 mo
- Risk-adjusted revenue, all four paths
- $1,222,500
- Growth if all four executed
- 40.8%
What stands out
Market penetration has the best risk-adjusted payoff
$383K expected annual revenue (85% odds) for $60K; $342K expected 3-year net profit.
Diversification has the largest headline ($1.2M) but 85% execution risk
Risk-adjusted it is worth $180K a year. Treat it as an option to test, not the core plan.
Penetration pays back in 5.4 months
Core-market growth is usually the cheapest money available; fund it before riskier quadrants.
Low capability fit: diversification
Fit of 2/5 or less means building skills, customers, and assets at the same time. Consider a partner or acquisition instead of building.
Next actions
- Commit budget and an owner to market penetration with a 90-day leading indicator (e.g. pipeline or pilot customers).
- Use penetration cash flow to fund one small test in the next-best quadrant.
- Stage the riskiest bet (diversification) as a capped pilot: spend no more than 20-25% of its full investment until early results land.
Model assumptions & limitations
- Base success odds by quadrant (penetration 75%, product development 50%, market development 45%, diversification 25%) are planning rules of thumb, not statistics.
- Capability fit moves the odds 10 points per step above or below 3/5; penetration assumes fit of 4/5.
- Expected profit = revenue uplift x odds x contribution margin; 3-year value ignores ramp time and discounting.