The metrics that separate healthy SaaS from the walking dead
SaaS companies live or die by churn (customers leaving) and retention (customers staying). You'll learn the core SaaS metrics: MRR (monthly recurring revenue), churn rate (how many customers you lose), and NRR (net revenue retention — can you grow from existing customers?). You'll discover why a SaaS company with 5% churn might fail while one with 10% churn thrives (the answer is expansion revenue). By the end, you'll be able to forecast whether your SaaS company will survive and scale.
Part of this AskBiz Academy learning path.
AskBiz Academy
MRR is the lifeblood metric for any subscription business. It tells you how much predictable revenue you generate every month — and how that number is changing.
4 min read · Beginner
Churn rate measures how fast you are losing customers or revenue. It is one of the most important — and most often ignored — metrics for any subscription business.
5 min read · Beginner
Net revenue retention measures how much recurring revenue you keep and expand from existing customers. Learn the formula, benchmarks, and why investors care.
4 min read · Intermediate
CLV is the total revenue you expect from a customer over their entire relationship with you. It changes everything about how you think about acquisition costs.
4 min read · Intermediate
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend needed to win one new customer. Pair it with lifetime value to assess whether your growth is commercially sustainable.
5 min read · Beginner
Burn rate tells you how fast you're spending money. Critical for startups — and useful for any business watching its cash.
3 min read · Beginner
Runway is how many months your business can operate before running out of cash. Here's how to calculate and extend it.
3 min read · Beginner
Expansion MRR is additional recurring revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or seat additions — the most efficient growth lever in SaaS.
5 min read · Intermediate
A Customer Health Score aggregates product usage, support, and engagement signals into a single number that predicts whether an account will renew, expand, or churn.
6 min read · Intermediate
Follow this learning path to master saas metrics mastery: build a resilient subscription business.
Get Started Free →