What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

Every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI. A metric is any number you can measure — page views, hours logged, boxes shipped. A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a metric you have deliberately elevated because it maps to a specific goal and a decision someone actually makes. The keyword is key: KPIs are the handful of measurements that matter enough to steer by. The practical discipline is demotion, not collection. You can track dozens of operational metrics in the background, but only a few of them belong on the dashboard people check every morning. A useful test: if a number moved sharply, would anyone do something differently? If yes, it is probably a KPI. If the honest answer is no, it is a metric worth storing but not worth surfacing. Teams get into trouble when they treat every metric as a KPI, crowd the dashboard with forty numbers, and end up acting on none of them. Fewer, sharper KPIs beat an exhaustive wall of data every time.