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SaaS Case Study

MRR & Churn Analysis Dashboard for SaaS Retention and Growth

In fast-scaling SaaS businesses, top-line growth alone does not tell the full story. Rising MRR can mask underlying issues such as early churn, declining LTV, and uneven performance across pricing tiers.

This case study outlines how retention and cohort analysis revealed revenue risk, high-value churn, and actionable GTM and product insights across customer plans.

Problem

While MRR trended upward, churn was increasing, profit margins were stagnating, and plan-level performance remained unclear.

  • Churn was likely offsetting revenue gains, particularly within specific pricing tiers.
  • Marketing was driving customer acquisition, but those efforts weren’t translating into profit growth.
  • A lack of plan-level visibility made it difficult to diagnose performance issues or take targeted action.

what we built

  • A two-layer retention and cohort analytics dashboard that combined company-wide health views with subscription-level segmentation to uncover churn drivers, LTV trends, and plan-level retention risk.
  • Tech Stack : Stripe, SQLServer, Stitch, dbt, BigQuery, PBI

INSIGHTS

The dashboard reshaped revenue strategy by revealing:
  • LITE and PAUSED were high-churn, low-LTV segments driving vanity growth.
  • PAUSED was flagged as a pre-churn stage, prompting early intervention workflows.
  • PRO users contributed ~44% of revenue from just 21% of users but accounted for ~45% of churned revenue, exposing a high-value churn risk. In simple words, the most valuable customers were churning fast.
  • GTM strategy shifted toward CORE-style customers that are high-LTV, mid-risk, and more retainable.
  • The LITE strategy was refined to:
    • Focus on upgrading high-fit users to CORE.
    • Improve onboarding and engagement to reduce early churn.
    • Limit acquisition of low-fit, non-converting users.
  • Marketing, Product, and Success aligned around cohort-based growth and retention priorities.
  • The Big Strategic Shift

Before:
Acquire more users.

After:
Protect high-value revenue.
Upgrade the right users.
Retain cohorts that compound.

solution

The goal: Uncover where growth was leaking and how to fix it.
  • Identify profitable cohorts vs early-churn segments.
  • Quantify how plan-level behavior impacts revenue and retention
  • Surface which pricing tiers drive sustainable LTV and which dilute it

outcome

The strategy moved from acquisition-led growth to retention-led growth prioritizing CORE expansion, PRO revenue protection, LITE upgrade optimization, and PAUSED-stage intervention to stabilize unit economics and restore compounding growth.

  • LITE - Reduce Vanity Growth

High churn, low LTV.

  • Cut low-fit acquisition.
  • Improve onboarding to reduce early churn.
  • Drive high-fit upgrades to CORE.

Focus: Quality over volume.

  • CORE - Anchor Sustainable Growth

High-LTV, more retainable segment.

  • Target CORE-like users in marketing.
  • Strengthen early lifecycle engagement.
  • Monitor cohort retention monthly.

Focus: Make CORE the growth engine.

  • PRO - Protect Revenue-Critical Accounts

21% of users bring in ~44% of revenue.

  • Weekly churn monitoring.
  • Early warning alerts for at-risk accounts.
  • Proactive retention workflows.
  • ROI reinforcement & targeted engagement.

Focus: Protect high-value revenue

  • PAUSED - Convert Pre-Churn into Recovery

Pre-churn stage identified.

  • Automated reactivation sequences.
  • Rapid outreach within 7 days.
  • Flexible billing options.

Focus: Convert pause into recovery.

Line and bar charts showing monthly active, new, canceled, and delinquent customers alongside net revenue, churned revenue, and churn rate from Jan 2023 to Jan 2024.
This company-wide view surfaces early warning signs in the growth engine. New customer acquisition trends downward over time, while cancellations and delinquent churn increase. The churn rate mirrors this rise in cancellations, indicating growing retention pressure even as net revenue appears stable. This high-level view flags the need to investigate where churn is coming from and which segments are driving revenue risk in deeper layers.
Bar charts of monthly ARPU and LTV with an overlaid churn rate line from Jan 2023 to Jan 2024, showing declining customer value as churn increases.
This view shows how unit economics deteriorate as churn rises. As customers leave sooner, the value generated per customer drops — reflected in declining ARPU and sharply falling LTV. While overall revenue can still look healthy in the short term, increasing churn quietly weakens the underlying economics of growth by reducing how much value each customer generates over their lifetime. This highlights why retention is central to sustainable SaaS growth.
Bar and line charts showing monthly net revenue and customer churn rate overall and broken down by LITE, CORE, PRO, ENTERPRISE, and PAUSED plans from Jan 2023 to Jan 2024.
This plan-level view connects revenue performance to churn risk across subscription tiers. While overall net revenue appears steady for much of the year, churn rates rise sharply in later months, especially within PRO and PAUSED plans, indicating concentrated revenue leakage in high-impact segments. CORE shows relatively steadier revenue and more predictable churn, making it a stabilizing tier. This breakdown helps prioritize where retention and product interventions will protect the most revenue.
Stacked bar chart showing churned revenue distribution by subscription tier over time, highlighting higher churn concentration in PRO compared to more stable CORE plans.
This plan-level view shows how the active customer base is distributed across tiers. While overall active customers grow for much of the year, the higher-value PRO segment remains a relatively small portion of the base compared to lower-value plans. This mix limits revenue quality and amplifies the impact of churn in PRO. The insight points to two levers: improve PRO retention and conversion from lower tiers, and rebalance acquisition toward higher-value segments.
Monthly net revenue bar chart with stacked revenue distribution by LITE, CORE, PRO, ENTERPRISE, and PAUSED plans from Jan 2023 to Jan 2024, showing PRO as the largest contributor to revenue.
This plan-level view shows how total net revenue is distributed across subscription tiers over time. The PRO plan consistently contributes the largest share of revenue (around 40–45%), making it a critical driver of business value. As a result, churn within PRO disproportionately impacts top-line performance and unit economics. This insight reinforces why retention efforts should be prioritized in PRO before scaling acquisition in lower-value tiers.
Monthly bar chart of active customers with stacked distribution by LITE, CORE, PRO, ENTERPRISE, and PAUSED plans from Jan 2023 to Jan 2024, showing PRO as a smaller share of the active base.
This plan-level view shows how the active customer base is distributed across tiers. While overall active customers grow for much of the year, the higher-value PRO segment remains a relatively small portion of the base compared to lower-value plans. This mix limits revenue quality and amplifies the impact of churn in PRO. The insight points to two levers: improve PRO retention and conversion from lower tiers, and rebalance acquisition toward higher-value segments.

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