SaaS KPIs

Every SaaS business tracks metrics. Most track too many. The ones that actually drive decisions fall into four groups: revenue, retention, efficiency, and growth quality. This page links to the detailed glossary entry for each, so you can go deep on whichever matters most right now.

Revenue KPIs

MRR is the foundation. It's your total monthly recurring revenue from active subscriptions. ARR annualises it for investor conversations and annual planning. Underneath both sit the movement metrics that explain where growth is actually coming from: net new MRR, expansion MRR, and contraction MRR.

For businesses with fixed-term contracts, annual contract value (ACV) and total contract value (TCV) add context about deal size and customer commitment that MRR alone doesn't capture.

Retention and churn KPIs

Churn rate measures what you're losing. Retention rate measures what you're keeping. Both should be tracked at the customer and revenue level separately. Revenue churn weights losses by value, which gives a more honest picture than logo counts.

Net revenue retention (NRR) and gross revenue retention (GRR) are increasingly the metrics that investors scrutinise most closely. NRR above 100% means your existing base is growing. GRR shows how sticky the product is without the flattery of upsells. For the full breakdown of how they differ, see NRR vs GRR.

Efficiency KPIs

Customer lifetime value paired with CAC tells you whether your unit economics work. The SaaS quick ratio compares growth inputs against losses, and a ratio above 4 is generally healthy. The SaaS magic number specifically measures how efficiently your sales and marketing spend converts into new ARR.

For a deeper look at unit economics and payback period, see the SaaS unit economics overview.

Customer health and engagement

NPS, CES, and health scores measure sentiment and engagement rather than revenue. They're leading indicators.

A drop in NPS or engagement score often precedes a churn spike by weeks or months.

Feature adoption rate, DAU/MAU ratio, and time to value round out the product-led side. These are covered in more detail under product-led growth metrics.

Payment health KPIs

Here's the blind spot most dashboards miss. Payment failure rate tells you what percentage of charges fail on the first attempt. Involuntary churn tracks the customers you lose purely because a payment couldn't be collected. In our experience, they surface recoverable revenue that other KPIs simply categorise as lost. This is also where the subscription KPIs page goes deeper.