Top 4 Indicators for Sunsetting a Product
When stakeholders fall in love with a legacy product, sunsetting becomes emotional — but the best product leaders know when to pull the plug using cost, customer satisfaction, technology age, and market fit.
Product owners create products to solve business problems. Over time, stakeholders develop emotional attachment — everyone involved in architecting, creating, monitoring, or using the product falls in love with it. Sunsetting is neither an easy call nor a fun one, but the best product leaders know when and how to pull the plug.
1. Cost to support: money + time Money: Compare how much was spent in the last five years to support the product — infrastructure, competitive salaries for talent, software licensing, logistics — against greenfield product creation and support. If the legacy project's ROI is lower, it is more profitable to sunset.
Time: If the team spends more time supporting the product than gaining return on time investment and customer business value, stakeholders need to revisit it. Consider time spent understanding legacy code, hiring and training support talent, and customer communication caused by application workflows.
2. Declining Net Promoter Score Periodically interview clients or send surveys asking how likely they are to recommend the product. If satisfaction scores fall below 6 on a scale of 10, sunsetting should be considered. Unsatisfied customers will ask for enhancements or seek alternatives — and legacy systems are usually hard to accommodate new requests. Strategically, sunsetting can save reputation and fund a competitive replacement.
3. Built on old technology Changes in technology are inevitable. Software architects should investigate: with the current stack, can we update features or introduce new ones? Is there enough technical talent available locally? Are SMEs available internally? Do manufacturers still produce support components? Is third-party software still supported?
If most answers are no, architects should propose retiring the product and leading stakeholders toward greenfield development — not endless patching.
4. Can't adapt to changing market trends Blockbuster ignored Netflix's disruption and filed for bankruptcy. Product owners should research competitor features and answer honestly: is the UI bad? Do workflows feel designed in the '90s? Is complexity blocking everyday users? In short — would you choose this product today?
Security and stability of old technology should never be compromised. Product owners and stakeholders should make informed sunset decisions backed by data.