Guides
Key SaaS metrics
Key SaaS metrics split in two. Some tell you whether your team is actually using the tool. Others are how a vendor describes its own business. They answer different questions.
Metrics for the team that adopted the tool
Track these after the purchase, in language the operator of a site can check. Pick the period and the action before anyone argues about the result.
Adoption
Adoption is the share of people who were supposed to use the tool and actually did. A product can be purchased and still sit unused on a weekend shift. If the people on the floor are not in the count, the rollout missed the work.
Active users
Active users are people who did something real in the period you chose, not people who merely have a login. A login that never sends a message is not an active chat user. A CRM seat that never logs a customer is not an active sales user. Agree the action: a message sent, a record updated, a task moved.
Cost per user
Cost per user is what you paid in the period, divided by the people who actually used the tool. Seats you bought and nobody opened make this worse than the price list suggests. The calculator shows the list-price side of that sum for a headcount you set. Pair it with the active-user count before you call the tool inexpensive.
Time to first message
For a chat tool, time to first message is how long after someone is added until they send or receive a real work message. A long wait usually means the invite, the setup, or the habit is wrong. The same idea fits a CRM (time to the first logged customer) and a work board (time to the first assigned task).
Vendor metrics, in plain words
Vendors and investors use another set of names. You will see them on earnings calls and in sales decks. None of them tells you whether the tool fits your sites. The definitions below belong on this page.
MRR is monthly recurring revenue: the subscription dollars the vendor expects in a month from current customers, before one-off project work. ARR stretches the same idea across a year. It describes the vendor book of business, not your invoice.
CAC is customer acquisition cost: what the vendor spends to win one customer, often sales and marketing divided by new customers. It says how expensive their growth is. It does not say the product will be opened on a Saturday shift.
LTV is lifetime value: a model of the profit one customer brings in before they leave. Vendors compare LTV with CAC. Treat it as their model. The inputs move easily, so ask which period and which margin they used.
Churn
Churn is the customers, or the revenue, that leave during a period. A vendor with heavy churn is replacing lost customers just to stay the same size. For the buyer, the matching question is whether your own team is still using the tool after the first month.
This is the definition. The statistics page does not publish a churn rate, because a rate we cannot date and source does not belong there.