SaaS Metrics Dashboard: Tracking MRR, Churn, and LTV

The Core SaaS Metrics Every Dashboard Needs

SaaS business health comes down to three relationships: how much revenue you add each month (new MRR + expansion MRR), how much you lose (churned MRR + contraction MRR), and how those two dynamics compare over time. A well-designed SaaS metrics dashboard makes these relationships immediately visible.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

MRR is the foundation. Track it decomposed into components:

• New MRR: Revenue from new customers acquired this month
• Expansion MRR: Additional revenue from existing customers upgrading or adding seats
• Churned MRR: Revenue lost from customers who cancelled
• Contraction MRR: Revenue lost from customers who downgraded
• Net New MRR: New + Expansion - Churned - Contraction

A waterfall chart visualizing these components each month is one of the most useful views for understanding business momentum.

Churn Rate

Calculate both customer churn (percentage of customers who cancelled) and revenue churn (percentage of MRR lost). They tell different stories. High customer churn among small accounts may not materially affect revenue if enterprise accounts are growing.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) = (MRR at end of period from existing customers) / (MRR at start of period from those same customers). NRR above 100% means expansion revenue exceeds churn — the business grows even without new customer acquisition.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

LTV = Average MRR per customer / Monthly churn rate. Or for subscription businesses with known contract lengths: LTV = Average contract value × average number of renewals.

Track LTV by acquisition cohort and plan type. LTV from enterprise customers signed via outbound sales is usually very different from LTV from SMB customers acquired via self-serve. Aggregating them masks which customer segments are actually profitable.

CAC and LTV:CAC Ratio

Customer Acquisition Cost = Total sales and marketing spend / New customers acquired. LTV:CAC ratio above 3:1 indicates a healthy business. Below 1:1 means you're spending more to acquire customers than they're worth — unsustainable regardless of revenue growth.

Building the Dashboard

This data typically comes from your subscription system (Stripe, Chargebee, or Recurly) rather than from Google Analytics. Export it to BigQuery and build a Looker Studio dashboard on top. Our product analytics service includes SaaS metrics infrastructure setup for teams that don't have this pipeline in place.