# Story Points vs. Hours: The Relationship and the Difference | LinearB Blog

> Story points vs. hours is an old dilemma. Learn more about points, why they’re better than hours, and also some pitfalls to be aware of.

_This is a markdown rendering of a live HTML page on linearb.io, generated for AI/LLM consumption — it is not a markdown-only site. To get the full HTML page instead, request this URL with an explicit `Accept: text/html` header (no wildcard, no markdown preference)._

[Blog](https://linearb.io/blog)

/

Story Points vs. Hours: The Relationship and the Difference

# Story Points vs. Hours: The Relationship and the Difference

![Photo of Carlos Schults](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/logo-mark-lg?_a=BAVMn6ID0)

By [Carlos Schults](https://linearb.io/blog/story-points-vs-hours#carlos-schults)

|

September 21, 2021

![Story_Timevs_Hours_ad3aa1fe52](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Story_Timevs_Hours_ad3aa1fe52?_a=BAVMn6ID0)

You can’t show your CEO how productive your engineering org really is if your sprint planning isn’t accurate. [The industry average for planning accurate sprints is under 50%](https://linearb.io/planning-accuracy/), meaning your org could use some improvement. 

So you try getting your teams to quantify their work, and they end up having to choose between using story points and hours during their sprint planning. But these metrics are both vague and don’t always stand up to scrutiny. They can also create issues for your org if you rely on them to gauge how productive your teams can be. 

In this article, we’ll be talking about story points vs. hours in agile, focusing specifically on which metric is better and helping you avoid using them incorrectly. 

## **Table of Contents**

* [What Are Story Points?](#what)
* [How Are Story Points Calculated?](#how)
* [Why Are Story Points Used in Agile Sprint Planning?](#why)
* [Why Are Story Points Better Than Hours?](#story)
* [Beware: Story Points Can Go Wrong](#beware)
* [Step Away from Agile Story Points vs Hours: Use the Right Metrics](#step)

## **What Are Story Points?**

[Story points](https://linearb.io/blog/story-points-definition-caution-on-estimating/) help teams estimate the complexity and effort required to implement a given user story. They also have some interesting properties. For starters, they’re simply numerical points without any associated unit of measurement.

Story points also don’t have — and shouldn’t have — an absolute value. We’ll come back to this point later, but suffice it to say you shouldn’t translate points to hours or any other measure of time.

Story points are relative and are only meaningful when compared to each other. For instance, a team should expect to complete a user story estimated at one point with much less effort than another estimated at five. An eleven-point story should be much more challenging still.

Finally, story point estimates are highly contextual. _They only have meaning within the boundaries of a single team_. As you’ll see, the agile estimation process aims to have the whole team reach a consensus on the effort it takes to complete a story. This means one point for one team can be wildly different for another.

![Confused woman meme trying to understand story points vs hours saying: "so you're telling me story points aren't days?"](https://assets.linearb.io/uploads/Meme-4.png)

Know the difference between story points and hours!   
Source: [Go2group.com](https://www.go2group.com/resources/blog/go2agile-do-agile-the-go2group-way/)

## **How Are Story Points Calculated?**

You don’t calculate story points — you estimate them. 

Generally, when one of your teams come together for sprint planning, they’ll use a set of numbers (typically in the Fibonacci sequence) to assign each user story. This is handy because they can all have a relative size to each other — something assigned a _4_ will be twice as hard as a _2_, and so on.

Teams can also use other methods, like the [planning poker technique](https://linearb.io/blog/planning-poker-estimation/) or T-shirt sizes as a unit of measurement. Over time, team members will better understand their skills and what they can accomplish, eventually coming to a consensus on how they value story points. 

Even though story points don’t quantify the amount of work done, they aren’t going away anytime soon, even if they don’t quantify the amount of work done. As vague as they can be, they’re still a good way for teams to gauge their time to a degree. But that doesn’t mean you need to have your teams solely rely on them for sprint planning.

## **Why Are Story Points Used in Agile?**

First, you don’t necessarily need to use story points in agile estimation. The [scrum guide](https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html), for instance, says only the development team is responsible for figuring out how to turn the selected stories into an increment of value [during the sprint](https://linearb.io/blog/when-should-a-sprint-goal-be-created/). How they do that is up to them.

So why are we using agile story points so often? 

Because they’re easy to use, it’s as simple as that. Story points are a straightforward way for devs to see how difficult tasks are and estimate their workloads in the upcoming sprint. 

Story points express the value of stories _relative_ to each other. The higher the value, the less confidence the team has in the estimate. But despite being an easy-to-use method, story points aren’t accurate. 

## **Why Are Story Points Better Than Hours?**

No two engineers will spend the same number of hours on the same task. Your new hires may spend two hours working on something, while a veteran dev may crank that same feature out in smaller amounts of time — time estimates aren’t static for all devs. 

Hours just don’t factor in the skill, experience, or effort it takes to complete a task, so hours estimated as a metric can’t work.

But _the story’s complexity relative to others would stay the same_, regardless of the difference in developer skill. That’s why, in the story points vs. hours debacle, the consensus is that story points can provide what hours can’t. 

The more your teams work together across sprints, the better their estimation skills will get. And this will improve the process, unlike tracking hours.

## **Beware: Story Points Can Go Wrong**

You can’t figure out how your teams are performing and what they’re working on if you’re looking at things through a blurry lens. Story points can give you a loose idea of how productive your teams are, but they don’t give you a full-HD picture. And the other execs will definitely not understand what they’re looking at with those. 

If teams are completing story points left and right, it means they’re being productive. But story points won’t tell you what they’re working on, just that they’re doing things and not necessarily the right things. This can quickly lead teams to value velocity over other metrics. 

And this is just a disaster waiting to happen. When you focus too heavily on velocity, teams will quickly start to game the system, inflating story point values as they go. This will be heavily detrimental to your performance and your entire org’s culture. 

[![Agile Velocity: The most dangerous metric for software developers](https://assets.linearb.io/uploads/AgileVelocity-LinkedIn-1024x536.png)](https://linearb.io/blog/why-agile-velocity-is-the-most-dangerous-metric-for-software-development-teams/)

_Find out why agile velocity is the most dangerous metric for software developers._ [_Look at 12 alternative metrics instead._](https://linearb.io/blog/why-agile-velocity-is-the-most-dangerous-metric-for-software-development-teams/)

Instead of relying solely on story points or hours, you should pivot your teams into using [modern sprint planning tools](https://linearb.io/blog/modern-sprint-planning-tools/) to improve their overall planning accuracy. The current standard of using issue trackers, story points, and Git is just no longer good enough.

That’s why we created a [six-step program](https://linearb.io/planning-accuracy/) to help team leaders understand and improve their development process. You can also use our [Project Delivery Tracker](https://linearb.io/project-delivery-tracker/) dashboard to get all the information you could ever need. 

You can then implement [Team Goals](https://linearb.io/engineering-metrics/) to help laser-focus your dev teams, and create a continuous improvement culture. And with our developer automation tool [WorkerB](https://linearb.io/workflow-optimization/), teams won’t need to sweat the small stuff like creating tickets for unplanned work or alerting people for PR reviews.

LinearB’s platform will help you plan sprints with confidence, so you can be sure your teams deliver on time. And you’ll finally have a clear view of when a project will be done.

Watch this short video to get a brief overview of everything we stand for at LinearB! 

## **Step Away from Agile Story Points vs. Hours: Use the Right Metrics**

As vague as they may be, story points are a good way to loosely plan your sprints and estimate team workloads. But you should absolutely _not_ be using them to concretely measure team performance. 

You can bring your sprints back into alignment with a developer productivity platform. Our WorkerB bot, for example, automates tedious tasks to keep devs on track while our Project Delivery Tracker gives you insight into how your software development teams are performing across the board.

LinearB gives you the power you need to visualize and take action over your teams’ performance. So the next time your CEO asks you for a plan to improve productivity, you’ll already be a step ahead. [Get started with us](https://linearb.io/get-started/).

[![Mike Gordon of Hippo](https://assets.linearb.io/uploads/LinearB-Youtube-Card_-Mike-Gordon-How-Hippo-Increased-Productivity-With-LinearB-1024x576.png)](https://linearb.io/blog/how-hippo-increased-productivity-with-linearb/)

Want to learn more about improving software development productivity? [Check out how our customer Hippo Insurance increased their productivity.](https://linearb.io/blog/how-hippo-increased-productivity-with-linearb/)

## Improve developer productivity with LinearB

Find us on

[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/linearb)
[](https://devinterrupted.substack.com/)

## Your next read

[![Cover image for AI ROI comes from measuring engineering outcomes on day one](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Blog_AI_ROI_comes_from_measuring_engineering_software_security_2400x1256_2c5eae0862?_a=BAVMn6ID0)](https://linearb.io/blog/kraken-nik-sudan-measure-ai-roi-engineering-outcomes)

Eng. Metrics

[AI ROI comes from measuring engineering outcomes on day one](https://linearb.io/blog/kraken-nik-sudan-measure-ai-roi-engineering-outcomes)

Kraken Engineering Operations Lead Nik Sudan details how to establish day-one data infrastructure to accurately measure AI ROI. Discover why raw token adoption...

[![Cover image for AI is rebuilding software delivery from SDLC to ADLC](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Blog_AI_rebuilding_software_delivery_2400x1256_3fd5887e75?_a=BAVMn6ID0)](https://linearb.io/blog/sdlc-to-adlc-agentic-software-delivery-transformation)

Eng. Metrics

[AI is rebuilding software delivery from SDLC to ADLC](https://linearb.io/blog/sdlc-to-adlc-agentic-software-delivery-transformation)

Discover how engineering organizations are transitioning from the traditional SDLC to an Agentic Development Lifecycle (ADLC). Learn why rising token costs...

[![Cover image for 8 million pull requests reveal where engineering productivity breaks down](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Blog_8_million_pull_requests_2400x1256_03724bfbb2?_a=BAVMn6ID0)](https://linearb.io/blog/8-million-prs-engineering-productivity)

Eng. Metrics

[8 million pull requests reveal where engineering productivity breaks down](https://linearb.io/blog/8-million-prs-engineering-productivity)

8.1M pull requests reveal the gap between AI adoption and engineering impact, and why code review is the bottleneck blocking real productivity gains.

## Structured data

_Machine-readable metadata (JSON-LD) embedded in the page for search/AI context — not content rendered on the page itself._

```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "LinearB",
  "url": "https://linearb.io",
  "logo": "https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/v1715628027/logo-mark-lg.svg",
  "description": "LinearB is the engineering productivity platform that helps engineering leaders prove AI is improving throughput without sacrificing delivery confidence, flow efficiency, or developer experience.",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/linearb"
  ],
  "award": [
    {
      "@type": "Award",
      "name": "LinearB is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Developer Productivity Insight Platforms",
      "dateAwarded": "2026",
      "awardedBy": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Gartner®"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Award",
      "name": "Great Place to Work Certification",
      "dateAwarded": "2025-2027",
      "awardedBy": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Great Place to Work"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Award",
      "name": "America's Best Startup Employers 2025",
      "dateAwarded": "2025",
      "awardedBy": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Forbes Magazine"
      }
    }
  ],
  "hasCertification": [
    {
      "@type": "Certification",
      "name": "SOC 1 Type 2"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Certification",
      "name": "SOC 2 Type 2"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Certification",
      "name": "GDPR Compliance certification"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Certification",
      "name": "ISO 27001"
    }
  ]
}
```

```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Story Points vs. Hours: The Relationship and the Difference",
  "url": "https://linearb.io/blog/story-points-vs-hours",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Carlos Schults"
  },
  "datePublished": "2021-09-21T10:17:04.000Z",
  "dateModified": "2021-09-21T10:17:04.000Z",
  "image": "https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/v1720000000/Story_Timevs_Hours_ad3aa1fe52.png",
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "LinearB",
    "logo": "https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/v1777485755/linearb-logo-2026.png"
  },
  "description": "Story points vs. hours is an old dilemma. Learn more about points, why they’re better than hours, and also some pitfalls to be aware of.\n"
}
```

## More on linearb.io

### Top navigation

- [Book a Demo](https://linearb.io/book-a-demo)
- [AI Code Reviews — Catch security risks, bugs, and spec mismatches](https://linearb.io/platform/ai-code-reviews)
- [AI & Productivity Insights — See how AI tools affect cycle time and delivery speed](https://linearb.io/platform/ai-developer-productivity-insights)
- [Measure AI Impact — Track AI adoption and tie it to delivery outcomes](https://linearb.io/use-case/measure-ai-impact)
- [MCP Server — Chat with your data to spot patterns and boost output](https://linearb.io/platform/mcp-server)
- [Resource Allocation — Cost initiatives and shape your investment strategy](https://linearb.io/platform/resource-allocation)
- [Cost Capitalization — Capitalize engineering costs with audit-ready reports](https://linearb.io/platform/cost-capitalization)
- [Dev Team Management — Set targets and tie throughput to business outcomes](https://linearb.io/platform/goals-and-reporting)
- [DevOps Workflow Automation — Policy-based PR routing, approvals, and tests](https://linearb.io/platform/ai-workflow-governance)
- [AI Powered Support — Unify AI and human code delivery in one clear view](https://linearb.io/use-case/ai-powered-support)
- [Optimization — Surface friction with feedback and MCP insights](https://linearb.io/platform/developer-experience)
- [Reporting — Spot what's working and what needs attention](https://linearb.io/use-case/measuring-developer-experience)
- [Surveys — Turn developer feedback into actionable signals](https://linearb.io/platform/developer-surveys)
- [Platform overview](https://linearb.io/platform/overview)
- [Register now](https://linearb.io/event/engineering-productivity-gap)
- [Customers](https://linearb.io/customers)
- [Pricing](https://linearb.io/pricing)
- [Why choose LinearB — Explore your data. Measure performance. Act to improve it.](https://linearb.io/why-linearb)
- [APEX framework — The operating model for AI-era engineering teams](https://linearb.io/resources/apex-framework)
- [Anti-FAQ — The questions other vendors won't answer](https://linearb.io/why-linearb/anti-faq)
- [Security — Enterprise-grade compliance and zero code access](https://linearb.io/security)
- [Build vs. buy — The hidden cost of building it yourself](https://linearb.io/resources/build-vs-buy)
- [Dev Interrupted Podcast — Conversations with engineering leaders](https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcasts)
- [Reports & Guides — Deep dives on productivity and delivery](https://linearb.io/resources)
- [Webinars — Expert sessions on productivity and AI](https://linearb.io/resources?category=workshops)
- [Metrics Benchmarks — See how your engineering org stacks up](https://linearb.io/resources/software-engineering-benchmarks-report)
- [Blog — Product updates and practical insights](https://linearb.io/blog)
- [Help Center — Documentation, setup, and support](https://linearb.helpdocs.io)
- [API Docs](https://docs.linearb.io/api-overview)
- [Status](https://www.linearbstatus.com/)
- [Integrations](https://linearb.io/integrations)
- [LinearB is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Developer Productivity Insight Platforms](https://linearb.io/resources/gartner-magic-quadrant-dpi-platforms-2026)
- [Sign in](https://app.linearb.io/login)
- [Enterprise](https://linearb.io/solutions/enterprise)
- [Contact](https://linearb.io/contact-us)
- [About us](https://linearb.io/about-us)
- [Careers](https://linearb.io/careers)
- [Service agreement](https://linearb.io/services-agreement)
- [Privacy policy](https://linearb.io/privacy-policy)
- [DPA](https://linearb.io/data-processing-agreement)
- [Security FAQ](https://linearb.io/security-faq)
- [Substack](https://devinterrupted.substack.com/)

### Footer

_Additional links from the site footer, not repeated from the top navigation above._

- [GitHub](https://github.com/linear-b)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/linearb)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/LinearB_Inc)