The article presents the Small and Medium Enterprise Growth Index (SMEs), developed by the Stolypin Institute for the Economy of Growth based on the data of PAO Sberbank. The tool proposed by the authors allows not only to carry out operational monitoring of the state of the SME sector, but also to assess the effectiveness of state policy aimed at developing the SME sector, including with the aim of designing further measures to support it. In the context of a pandemic and sanitary and epidemiological restrictions, according to the results of the 1st–3rd quarters of 2020, the index showed moderate growth in the SME sector, close to “stagnation” (+5.8 p.). At the same time, the growth of the index relative to the 2nd quarter of 2020, during which the decline in business activity was maximum, amounted to +1 p.