Most early SaaS dashboards I see track the wrong things. Page views. Signups. Total revenue this quarter. Those numbers feel good and tell you almost nothing about whether the business is actually healthy.
The metrics that matter are the ones that answer four questions: Is recurring revenue growing? Can I afford to acquire customers? Are those customers worth more than they cost? How long until I run out of money? That's MRR, CAC, LTV, and runway. Get these four right and you can make almost every early-stage decision with confidence.
Here's how to calculate each one correctly — including the mistakes that quietly inflate them — with the actual formulas.
1. MRR — and the four movements inside it
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) is the predictable revenue you can expect every month. The number itself is easy. What founders miss is that a flat MRR can hide a business that's bleeding.
