Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)

Serviceable Obtainable Market generally captures all factors that limit the scale of demand for your business, such as competitors' market share, speed of delivery, proximity to customers, ease of purchase, language or other demographic barriers, and other forms of friction between your business model and your target customer.

SOM is the lowest in the hierarchy of market share metrics, including Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) but is no less important. While TAM captures the maximum possible market share for a product or service and SAM captures the maximum sales potential of your target audience, SOM provides the most realistic picture of your potential revenue. This is therefore a useful metric to forecast sales, plan your business strategy, study your target demographic, and present to investors as the future return potential of your business.

SOM measures your revenue given that you successfully capture every possible customer who fits your niche. In reality, this is impossible to achieve. However, SOM acts as both an aspirational metric and as a benchmark for your current performance and future growth projections. For investors, this metric describes the potential short term return on their investment.