diff --git a/flowbench/BenchRandom.cpp b/flowbench/BenchRandom.cpp
index 3f830565c0..e2d114b93c 100644
--- a/flowbench/BenchRandom.cpp
+++ b/flowbench/BenchRandom.cpp
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ static void bench_random(benchmark::State& state) {
 		double r = deterministicRandom()->random01();
 		benchmark::DoNotOptimize(r);
 	}
+	state.SetItemsProcessed(static_cast<long>(state.iterations()));
 }
 
 BENCHMARK(bench_random)->ReportAggregatesOnly(true);
diff --git a/flowbench/BenchStream.actor.cpp b/flowbench/BenchStream.actor.cpp
index 2731da50f0..6f77f7ca6f 100644
--- a/flowbench/BenchStream.actor.cpp
+++ b/flowbench/BenchStream.actor.cpp
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * BenchStream.cpp
+ * BenchStream.actor.cpp
  *
  * This source file is part of the FoundationDB open source project
  *
diff --git a/flowbench/BenchTimer.cpp b/flowbench/BenchTimer.cpp
index 6cf0b9eaf6..c97bf66304 100644
--- a/flowbench/BenchTimer.cpp
+++ b/flowbench/BenchTimer.cpp
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ static void bench_timer(benchmark::State& state) {
 		double time = timer();
 		benchmark::DoNotOptimize(time);
 	}
-	state.SetItemsProcessed(items * static_cast<long>(state.iterations()));
+	state.SetItemsProcessed(static_cast<long>(state.iterations()));
 }
 
 static void bench_timer_monotonic(benchmark::State& state) {
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ static void bench_timer_monotonic(benchmark::State& state) {
 		double time = timer_monotonic();
 		benchmark::DoNotOptimize(time);
 	}
-	state.SetItemsProcessed(items * static_cast<long>(state.iterations()));
+	state.SetItemsProcessed(static_cast<long>(state.iterations()));
 }
 
 BENCHMARK(bench_timer)->ReportAggregatesOnly(true);
diff --git a/flowbench/README.md b/flowbench/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1f823b2d4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/flowbench/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+Summary
+=======
+
+`flowbench` is an executable that can be used to microbenchmark parts of the FoundationDB code. The goal is to make it easy to test the performance of various sub-millisecond operations using `flow` and `fdbrpc`. Specifically, this tool can be used to:
+
+- Test the performance effects of changes to the actor compiler or to the `flow` and `fdbrpc` libraries
+- Test the performance of various uses of the `flow` and `fdbrpc` libraries
+- Find areas for improvement in the `flow` and `fdbrpc` libraries
+- Compare `flow`/`fdbrpc` primitives to alternatives provided by the standard library or other third-party libraries.
+
+Usage
+=====
+
+- To build the `flowbench` executable, add `-DBUILD_FLOWBENCH=ON` to your cmake command.
+- Then you can run `bin/flowbench --help` to see possible uses of `flowbench`.
+- Running `bin/flowbench` directly will run all registered benchmarks, but you may want to limit your run to a subset of benchmarks. This can be done by running `bin/flowbench --benchmark_filter=<regex>`
+- All benchmark names can be listed with `bin/flowbench --benchmark_list_tests`
+- Example output:
+
+```
+$ bin/flowbench --benchmark_filter=bench_ref
+2020-08-04 21:49:40
+Running bin/flowbench
+Run on (7 X 2904 MHz CPU s)
+CPU Caches:
+  L1 Data 32 KiB (x7)
+  L1 Instruction 32 KiB (x7)
+  L2 Unified 256 KiB (x7)
+  L3 Unified 12288 KiB (x1)
+Load Average: 0.15, 0.15, 0.72
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Benchmark                                                     Time             CPU   Iterations UserCounters...
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+bench_ref_create_and_destroy<RefType::RawPointer>          4.90 ns         4.90 ns    116822124 items_per_second=203.88M/s
+bench_ref_create_and_destroy<RefType::UniquePointer>       4.94 ns         4.94 ns    141101924 items_per_second=202.555M/s
+bench_ref_create_and_destroy<RefType::SharedPointer>       42.5 ns         42.5 ns     13802909 items_per_second=23.531M/s
+bench_ref_create_and_destroy<RefType::FlowReference>       5.05 ns         5.05 ns    100000000 items_per_second=197.955M/s
+bench_ref_copy<RefType::RawPointer>                        1.15 ns         1.15 ns    612121585 items_per_second=871.218M/s
+bench_ref_copy<RefType::SharedPointer>                     10.0 ns         10.0 ns     67553102 items_per_second=99.8113M/s
+bench_ref_copy<RefType::FlowReference>                     2.33 ns         2.33 ns    292317474 items_per_second=428.507M/s
+```
+- More detailed documentation can be found at https://github.com/google/benchmark
+
+Existing Benchmarks
+===================
+- `bench_populate` measures the population of a vector of mutations
+- `bench_ref` compares the performance of the `flow` `Reference` type to other pointer types
+- `bench_iterate` measures iteration over a list of mutations
+- `bench_stream` measures the performance of writing to and reading from a `PromiseStream`
+- `bench_random` measures the performance of `DeterministicRandom`.
+- `bench_timer` measures the perforamnce of FoundationDB timers.
+
+Future use cases
+================
+
+- Benchmark the overhead of sending and receiving messages through `FlowTransport`
+- Benchmark the performance of serializing/deserializing various types