Many teams struggle to keep up with their analytics, and find amassing all the data they need to calculate their key performance indicators challenging.
SaaS dashboard software has the potential to save you hours of manual calculation, make tracking your KPIs simple, and do so much more: but what solution(s) will work for your company?
In this article we dive into the benefits of SaaS dashboards, key performance indicators every company should track, the most important factors to consider when choosing your analytics software and our recommendations.
Last updated in July 2024
Benefits of SaaS Dashboards
More accurate and efficient decision making
Important analytics like your Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Revenue Churn Rate and Quick Ratio can help you make decisions for your business. You can utilise a SaaS analytics dashboard tool to ease the burden of manual calculations and complex spreadsheets.Save costs and do better resource allocation
With access to the right analytics it is easier to determine the best action for your business, and explain the action you're taking to others within your organisation. If your SaaS analytics tool shows you that your Daily Active Users and CSAT score are decreasing, you might consider hiring new people within your customer success team, for example.
Every metric on your SaaS analytics dashboard gives potential insight into how you can better allocate resources.
Understand customer behavior and craft personalised marketing Messages
Some specialised marketing analytics software can collect data from your marketing website and even your users' application instances. Within this huge chunk of data is precise and detailed information on all interactions every website visitor or customer has with your business.
By automatically analysing the data, it is now possible to understand individual customer behaviour and craft personalised messages. For example, you can use software to display different content to website visitors based on their contact attributes.
An example of a SaaS use-case for this would be a Customer Success Platform showing different landing page copy to a customer service rep vs. a VP Customer Success.
Mitigate risks
Actionable insights help to identify potential risks which can be managed. For instance, monitoring your month-on-month MQL growth rate could help identify that your free demo offer isn't as appealing to your target audience as you thought it would be, and that a free trial is a better fit for your product.
KPIs Every SaaS Company Needs to Track on Their Dashboard
To measure the results of your marketing activities and SaaS product usage you should keep track of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The KPIs that are critical to measuring the success of every SaaS company are:
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
With the help of SaaS analytics software, you can access this figure any time without doing manual calculations. MRR is a powerful metric that accounts for every single paying customer and can be broken down into the following types:- New Business MRR, which accounts for revenue generated from new paying customers within a given month.
- Expansion MRR, which is revenue generated from existing customers that upgraded their subscription or purchased additional features in that month.
- Churned MRR, which is revenue lost due to cancelled subscriptions. This negatively impacts the MRR value.
- Contraction MRR, which is revenue lost as a result of subscription downgrades.
- Reactivated MRR, which is revenue gained via re-subscription from customers that previously unsubscribed from their SaaS product.
Revenue Churn Rate
Revenue churn rate is a KPI that shows the value of software users that unsubscribed or downgraded during a given time period. Though it is easy to calculate, some SaaS companies overlook this and focus much more on sales & marketing KPIs.
A critical success factor for your SaaS business is its ability to retain existing revenue. It is usually much cheaper to retain a dollar of revenue than it is to acquire a new dollar of revenue.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Acquiring new users for your SaaS software incurs a variety of costs including marketing, sales, plus the relevant teams' salaries and benefits. The CAC is calculated by dividing your total sales & marketing costs by the number of new customers for the given time period.
It is important to regularly monitor the ratio of CAC to Customer Lifetime Value in order to assess the viability of your business model, and any assumptions you may have made as you grow.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
The initial fee a customer pays to use your SaaS software is not the full value of that customer. The CLTV is the total amount a customer spends before they cancel their subscription and don't return. When you know your CLTV, you can compare it with your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
Customer Churn Rate
Distinct from revenue churn rate, it is also important to track the number of customers you've lost during a given time period. Most SaaS businesses will notice some degree of correlation between the customer churn rate and revenue churn rate. Divergences in the degree of correlation suggest that the types of customers you're retaining are changing.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Where MRR measures the recurring revenue generated each month, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) refers to the recurring revenue you’d generate over the course of a year. ARR can help you predict your expected recurring revenue for the next 12 months, with the assumption that your customer base remains the same.
To calculate your forecasted ARR, simply multiply your current MRR by 12.
Quick Ratio
Quick ratio is a metric that is calculated by dividing New Business MRR + Expansion MRR by Churned MRR + Contraction MRR in a given period. A SaaS quick ratio of 4 or higher is usually considered to be healthy.
It is important to keep track of your SaaS quick ratio because it shows you the rate of adoption versus the rate of churn. It tells you how sustainable your growth is, and how efficient your current growth strategy is.
How to Choose The Right Software
Most SaaS analytics software will offer you a free trial: you only need to pay if you continue using it after a trial period. Choosing your analytics provider is a big step and it is important to consider the following factors before making your choice.
Desired business goal
The first step when choosing your SaaS analytics software is to clearly define your business objectives. For instance, if you wish to increase customer retention, you might need your software to track churn rate, customer lifetime value (CLTV) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey results.To minimise your churn rate you might even need analytics software that offers customer behaviour analysis and segmentation capabilities so that you can study the patterns that lead to churn. From that, you can create strategies to address the identified patterns and increase customer retention.
Analytics capacity
Many SaaS companies need to go beyond calculating simple mathematical metrics. Most top analytics software for SaaS companies are able to do advanced statistical calculations that help to identify trends within data, provide valuable insights and predict future outcomes.For instance, a SaaS company that wishes to monitor their sales teams' performance might want to do a cohort analysis of their Win Rate and Average New Contract values against the sales rep which closed the deals.
Integration
It is important to check how the analytics software you're evaluating integrates with existing applications you use and third-party software that you are likely to use in the near future.For instance, most SaaS companies will need integration with their billing platform to track the most important revenue metrics. Your company will need to check that your chosen SaaS analytics tool has pre-built integrations for all needed third-party software in order to avoid potential headaches.
Some SaaS analytics platforms also include a custom API which will allow you to import data from any source of your choosing, although this may require some development work, depending on what you're integrating.
User Interface and Dashboard Navigation
The visuals and user interface should be friendly and easy to understand even for non-technical users. You will want to be confident that everyone who needs access within your organisation will be able to utilise the software you choose. Though the functionality of the software is important, a simple and quick-to-navigate dashboard will make wider adoption of the analytics tool more likely.Ability to Scale
When choosing your SaaS analytics software it is important to check their plans and see that your business can scale in the future without facing prohibitive costs. Look for analytics software with value-aligned pricing models that will support your business through different growth stages.Some SaaS analytics platforms have business models that can support businesses from the start-up phase through to the scale-up and enterprise stages.
Customisation
Your business may have custom metrics that need to be calculated. In this case, it is necessary to check the customisation options that are available within the software you're evaluating. Your company might need SaaS analytics software that allows advanced customer segmentation in order to gain deeper insights into specific business metrics, for example.If you can’t seem to find the customisation option you need within a SaaS analytics platform, it's always worth contacting the support or sales team to learn whether the software can be adapted to meet your unique needs. You may be surprised with how far some teams are willing to go to help you.
Our SaaS Analytics Software Recommendations
Baremetrics: for Revenue Analytics
Baremetrics is a subscription analytics tool that is designed to help SaaS companies make better decisions, and grow their business faster.- A central dashboard you can use to get a complete overview of all the metrics that matter to your SaaS company.
- Segmentation tools you can use to split your customers into different audiences to get deeper insights into customer categories. Custom customer segments can easily be created based on any datapoint the software you integrate collects.
Common examples include geographical location, subscription type, marketing channel, and year of registration. - Complete freedom to create as many custom customer segments as you need to track.
- Combined ease-of-use for front-end users with power and flexibility on the back-end (if you're a data nerd, you'll love it! But don't worry if not, your setup can be as simple or complex as you need).
- Excellent SaaS specialised support, they go out of their way to ensure customer success with the platform.
- Native integrations with virtually any payment provider or subscription platform, including Stripe, Braintree, Chargify, Recurly, Square, and Paypal.
If your payment provider isn't supported or you've rolled out your own subscription logic, you can use their analytics API to send in subscription data from anywhere. - Pricing plans that fit your MRR and scale upwards as you expand. Pricing starts at $108 per month. A 20% discount is available to customers who choose to pay annually.
- Add-on features like “Cancellation Insights” that allow you to show pop-up questionnaires and automated follow-up emails after subscription cancellation, “Recover” to help combat failed payments, and “Forecast” for intelligent projections.
Case Studies
How Grokability recovered $150,000 in failed payments with Baremetrics
Grokability has an asset management tool called “Snipe-It” and an email verification service called “Goodforms”. With the help of Baremetrics, the company was able to recover $150,000 in Failed Charges across the company’s assets. You can check out the complete case study to learn the exact steps taken to achieve these results.
How Statusbrew reduced churn and recovered $10k+ in less than 3 months with Baremetrics
Statusbrew is a Social Media Marketing & Management platform that needed to track payment data in order to recover failed card payments. The company used Baremetrics to recover $10k+ in less than 3 months.
How UXPin used Baremetrics and saved 50-hours of maintenance of their previous in-house tool
UXPin is a design tool that uses Baremetrics to track SaaS metrics and financial goals. Using Baremetrics has saved them more than 50 hours of maintenance on the in-house tool they were using previously. This case study shows how the team was able to get all financial metrics in one single platform, save lots of time and make effective decisions at the right time.
HubSpot: For Marketing Analytics
Hubspot has excellent dashboard and reporting features that show powerful analytics you can use to make informed decisions for your SaaS business.
- You can create customized dashboards to view marketing, sales and service data from a single location.
- Utilize advanced reporting permissions to give your employees access to only the data they need. You can set reports and dashboards to public or private or restrict access to specific users for data privacy control.
- The HubSpot marketing hub pricing plans for Businesses and enterprises starts from $800 per month. Though individuals and small teams can access a limited but rich version of the software for free before scaling up to paid plans.
How SaaS company iAdvize boosts leads & traffic with HubSpot
Since iAdvize started using HubSpot, it has increased its website traffic by 3X, lead generation increased by 4X and the sales cycle has been halved. Also, the marketing team increased from 4 to 14 people in order to handle the new growth. Check out the full case study on how they achieved these great results.
How Shore reduced customer acquisition costs by 35% with HubSpot
Shore is a SaaS platform that allows business to offer 24/7 online appointment booking in a synced calender. The platform also includes an automatically updated CRM and marketing tools. Shore changed from an out-bound to in-bound marketing strategy and adapted HubSpot within their new marketing strategy. As a result, Shore achieved a 12X increase in leads and reduced customer acquisition costs by 35%.
Conclusion
To grow your SaaS business, it is important to continuously pay attention to your KPIs. Without analytics, it is impossible to know what is working or not.
Every SaaS metric tells a story about your business. Even basic metrics like Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Revenue Churn tell you a lot about your SaaS business' health.
More advanced metrics like your Quick Ratio can tell you even more still. A continuously decreasing quick ratio shows that your growth is becoming less efficient, and that you need to do something to either reduce churn or accelerate revenue acquisition.
The right SaaS analytics tool will automatically calculate both basic and advanced metrics for you, keep them up-to-date and offer countless other features that help you grow with strength. Choosing the right software for your business isn't always easy, especially if your needs are very complex, but it's important to get it right.
Our top revenue analytics recommendation to readers is Baremetrics, but we recommend you try it for at least a couple of weeks before you buy to make sure it fulfills your requirements. For marketing analytics, you still can't go wrong with HubSpot.
