The 5 SaaS Metrics Every Solo Founder Must Track Weekly

I've talked to a lot of solo SaaS founders who are flying blind. They know their Stripe balance and their MRR. Maybe they know their churn rate if Stripe's dashboard happens to show it. But they don't know why things are moving the way they are — and that means they can't fix the right problems.

Five metrics, tracked weekly, will change this. Not twenty metrics. Not a complex BI setup. Five numbers that give you a complete picture of your business health.

1. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) — and Its Rate of Change

You already track MRR. What most people miss is tracking its week-over-week change as a percentage, not just as a dollar amount. A jump from $2,000 to $2,200 sounds good. But if last week was $2,100 to $2,200, your growth rate is decelerating — and that's a signal worth catching early.

Formula: MRR Growth Rate = (This Week MRR − Last Week MRR) / Last Week MRR × 100

2. Churn Rate

Churn is the silent killer of SaaS businesses. You can be adding new customers every week while your business is slowly dying if your churn rate is high enough. The formula is simple: Churn Rate = Customers Lost This Month / Customers at Start of Month × 100.

What's a "good" churn rate? For B2C SaaS, under 5% monthly is acceptable. For B2B, aim for under 2% monthly. If you're above those numbers, growth is just filling a leaky bucket.

3. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

LTV is how much revenue you make from a customer over their entire relationship with you. Formula: LTV = Average Revenue Per User / Monthly Churn Rate.

If ARPU is $29 and monthly churn is 3%, your LTV is $29 / 0.03 = $967. That number tells you the maximum you can spend to acquire a customer and still be profitable.

4. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC = Total Sales & Marketing Spend / New Customers Acquired. For a solo founder spending $500/month on ads and acquiring 10 customers, CAC is $50.

The critical ratio is LTV:CAC. A healthy SaaS business has LTV:CAC of 3:1 or better. If your LTV is $967 and your CAC is $50, your ratio is 19:1 — that's excellent. If your LTV:CAC is under 1:1, you're paying to lose money.

5. Payback Period

Payback period = CAC / Monthly ARPU. If CAC is $50 and ARPU is $29, payback period is 1.7 months. This matters because every month a customer is active after their payback period is pure profit contribution. Shorter payback periods mean less cash flow pressure.

Track all five weekly in a single spreadsheet, and you'll have more useful business intelligence than 90% of early-stage SaaS founders.