pain point

noun

plural pain points

: a persistent or recurring problem (as with a product or service) that frequently inconveniences or annoys customers

When you're in an established market, you have an established customer; their needs and pain points are clearly laid out on your competitors' review sites.

—Billy Polson

Customer service, which has been a pain point of bigger banks for years, is also improving in that it's getting faster and requires little from you.

—Chris Welch

broadly : something that is a recurring source of trouble, annoyance, or distress

Meanwhile, ironing is a pain point with her boyfriend because she loves the look of a crisply pressed men's shirt. "He never irons his shirts and it drives me crazy," she [Elyse Moody] says.

—Jura Konicus

Examples of pain point in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Companies often begin with a proof of concept or proof of value to address pressing pain points—such as cost visibility, allocation or IT cost-to-serve metrics. —Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Forbes.com, 29 July 2025

Maybe the Rockies can now help with another pain point. —Jackson Roberts, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 July 2025

Additionally, the research concluded that EV chargers are generally less reliable than gas stations, so Tesla's Supercharger network addresses a major pain point for automakers looking to produce competitive EVs. —Charles Singh, USA Today, 22 July 2025

In a recent episode of podcast Fail Better with host David Duchovny, who once directed an episode of the police procedural, Deschanel opened up about the pain point and how her diagnosis of ADHD and dyslexia as a child affected her career later on. —Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 12 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1986, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for pain point

• adjoint
• anoint
• appoint
• checkpoint
• conjoint
• disjoint
• endpoint
• gunpoint
• midpoint
• nonpoint
• pinpoint
• standpoint