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The development of oxygen-evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts has been spurred by thermodynamic considerations on the free-energy landscape. Most commonly, electrocatalytic activity is approximated by the analysis of the free-energy changes among the mechanistic description, thereby taking only reaction steps with weak-binding adsorbates into account. Herein, a new method, denoted as the electrochemical-step asymmetry index (ESAI), is presented, which approximates electrocatalytic activity by penalizing both too strong as well as too weak bonding of intermediate states in order to mimic the well-known Sabatier principle. • The electrochemical-step asymmetry index (ESAI) is a descriptor to approximate electrocatalytic activity based on the analysis of the free-energy changes for a given mechanistic description, exemplified by the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). • The concept of the ESAI is based on the assumption that the optimum free-energy landscape has an asymmetric shape because this may factor overpotential and kinetic effects in the analysis, and the ESAI penalizes both too strong as well as too weak bonding of intermediate states to render a thorough representation of the Sabatier principle feasible. • The ESAI is a conceptual development of the earlier proposed electrochemical-step symmetry index (ESSI), which relies on a symmetric distribution of the free-energy changes as thermodynamic optimum and which takes only weak-binding adsorbates into account.