Multipinhole SPECT system design is largely a trial-and-error process. General principles can give system designers a general idea of how a system with certain characteristics will perform. However, the specific performance of any particular system is unknown before the system is tested. The development of an objective evaluation method that is not based on experimentation would facilitate the optimization of multipinhole systems. We derive a figure of merit for prediction of SPECT system performance based on the entire singular value spectrum of the system. This figure of merit contains significantly more information than the condition number of the system, and is therefore more revealing of system performance. This figure is then compared with simulated results of several SPECT systems and is shown to correlate well to the results of the simulations. The proposed figure of merit is useful for predicting system performance, but additional steps could be taken to improve its accuracy and applicability. The limits of the proposed method are discussed, and possible improvements to it are proposed.