Subscription metrics

Use Stripe Billing analytics and reports to keep track of subscription metrics and understand and manage your revenue.

Downloadable reports

To build financial models and begin downstream reporting, download your billing metrics data in CSV format. The export includes the following reports:

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Metric benchmarking beta

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Metric definitions

Customers, Subscribers, and Subscriptions

In Stripe, you create Customers and Subscriptions. If a Customer has one or more Subscriptions attached, then Stripe considers that Customer to be a Subscriber. If any of the Customer’s Subscriptions are paid Subscriptions in an active or past_due state, then the Customer is considered an Active Subscriber.

When a Subscriber’s subscription is canceled or marked as unpaid, then the subscription is considered churn and no longer counts towards MRR.

When all of a Subscriber’s Subscriptions are canceled or marked as unpaid, then the Subscriber is considered to have churned and will no longer count as an Active Subscriber.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

MRR is the sum of the monthly-normalized value of all your active and past_due subscriptions. MRR calculations exclude subscriptions on trial periods, any taxes applied to the subscription, any subscribers on free plans, and any metered (usage based) products.

Example

In a given period, 100 subscribers are on Plan A (100 USD/mo) and 50 subscribers are on Plan B (600 USD/year). MRR = (100 * 100 USD) + (50 * (800 USD/12)) = 12,500 USD

Learn more about how your MRR is impacted by taxes, trials, delinquency, and refunds.

If you charge your customers based on usage and want to include usage based products in your MRR and subscription metrics, sign up below to receive updates about sign up below for updates.

MRR growth

MRR growth is the net change in your MRR over a period of time starting with the MRR at the beginning of the period, adding any new MRR and expansion MRR, subtracting any contraction MRR and any churn MRR and adjusting for any foreign currency (FX) impact.

Example

At the start of the period, your MRR is 1,000 USD.

• New MRR: During the period, you have 1 subscriber convert from a free trial to Plan A (100 USD/mo). This is a positive change of +100 USD to your MRR.

• Expansion: During the period, you have 1 subscriber upgrade from Plan A (100 USD/mo) to Plan C (150 USD/mo). This is a positive change of +50 USD to your MRR.

• Contraction: During the period, you have 1 subscriber downgrade from Plan A (100 USD/mo) to Plan B (60 USD/mo). This is a negative change of -40 USD to your MRR.

• Churn: During the period, you have 1 subscriber downgrade from Plan B (60 USD/mo). This is a negative change of -60 USD to your MRR.

• FX Adjustment: You have a single customer paying in a foreign currency. They subscribed to Plan A in a foreign currency last period. During that period it was worth (100 USD/mo) but the currency has lost value in the current period and it’s now worth 95 USD/mo. This is a negative change of -5 USD to your MRR.

Here’s a summary breakdown:

Active Subscribers

Active subscribers only includes subscribers with positive MRR that are in an active or past_due state (read more about subscription states here). Subscribers on free plans or trials are not included. A customer with multiple active subscriptions will be counted as a single active subscriber.

If a subscriber drops to 0 USD in MRR they’re considered churned in the period. This most commonly happens when a subscription is canceled. This can also occur if you’re choosing to subtract discounts from your MRR. In this case, a subscriber will be considered churned if they have a 100% coupon applied and they will become active again if the coupon is removed.

Active Subscriber Growth

Active subscriber growth is the net change in your number of active subscribers over a period of time. Start with the number of active subscribers at the beginning of the period, add any new active subscribers and any reactivated subscribers and subtract any churned subscribers.

New Subscribers

The sum of paid subscribers who became active for the first time during the period. This does not include subscribers on free plans or trials. Existing paid subscribers who add additional subscriptions will not be counted multiple times. Reactivated customers will not be included either.

New Trials

The sum of subscriptions that started a trial during the period. The number of trials is counted at the subscription level rather than the customer level so a single customer could count as multiple trials.

Example

• Jane creates two subscriptions in January.
  • Each subscription starts with a 7-day free trial period on January 1.
  • Jane would count as two new trials in January.
• John enters a 7-day free trial period on January 1.
  • John does not renew.
  • John then enters another 7-day free trial on January 21.
  • John would count as two new trials in January.

Trial Conversion Rate

The number of subscriptions that converted from a trial to a paid plan in the last 30 days divided by the number of new trials created in the last 30 days. The number may exceed 100% if some subscriptions are converted to a paid plan after the end of their trial period.

The number reflects the trial conversion rate at the end of the selected time period.

Example

During the month, 100 new trials were created and 15 trials converted. The trial conversion rate would be: 15 / 100 = 15%

Subscriber Churn Rate

The number of active subscribers lost due to churn over the last 30 days divided by the number of act in a given period divided by the number of active subscribers at the start of the period.

Example

At the start of the month, the business had 1000 subscribers. During the month, the business added 100 subscribers and churned 100 subscribers. The subscriber churn rate for the period would be: 100 / (1000 + 100) = 9.1%

Churned Revenue

The sum of churned MRR and contraction MRR in the period.

Example

During the period, Jane cancels her 120 USD per year plan and John downgrades from a 50 USD per month plan to a 25 USD per month plan. The churned revenue during the period would be 10 (Jane) + 25 USD (John) = 35 USD.

Retention by Cohort

Stripe assigns cohorts to subscribers based off of when they first started generating positive Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) by starting active paying subscriptions. Revenue retention considers expansion and thus can increase above 100%.

For subscriber retention:

• The start value is the initial number of active subscribers in the cohort.
• Month x refers to the remaining number of active subscribers at the end of each subsequent month.

For revenue retention:

• The start MRR is the MRR of all active subscribers in the cohort.
• Month x refers to the amount of MRR remaining from subscribers in the cohort at the end of the each subsequent month. The MRR for a cohort can change due to upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations and thus can exceed 100%.

Example

In January, 100 subscribers become active subscribers. Each month the subscriber churn rate is 10%. Consequently you’d expect to the following retention rates in each month:

• Month 1: 90%
• Month 2: 81%
• Month 3: 73%
• Month 4: 66%
• Month 5: 59% And so on.

In January, 100 subscribers became active on 10 USD/mo plans. The starting MRR is 1,000 USD. At the end of Month 1, 10 subscribers have churned and 5 subscribers have upgraded to 25 USD/mo plans. The net MRR impact is: 125 USD of expansion MRR - 100 USD of churn MRR = +25 USD. Therefore in Month 1, you’ll see 102.5% revenue retention.

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

This is your average MRR per paid subscriber. ARPU is calculated by dividing your total MRR by the number of active subscribers. The number reflects the ARPU at the end of the selected time period.

Example

You have 100 active subscribers at the end of January. The total MRR at the end of January is 50,000 USD. Your ARPU at the end of January is 500 USD

Subscriber lifetime value (LTV)

The subscriber lifetime value is calculated by dividing the Average revenue per user (ARPU) by the subscriber churn rate. This is an estimate of LTV based on the values at various points in time.

Example

January started with 110 subscribers and finished with 100 after 10 subscribers churned. The total MRR at the end of January is 50,000 USD. The ARPU at the end of January is 500 USD while the January subscriber churn rate was 9%. Subscriber lifetime value at the end of January is therefore (500 USD) / (9%) = 5,555 USD

Configure your metrics definitions

You can configure metrics from the Billing overview page. Click Configure to change how Stripe calculates Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Churn, and Active Subscribers. Changes take 24-48 hours to appear in your configuration.

Discounts

You can configure whether to include or exclude discounts in your MRR calculation. Subtracting discounts from MRR is considered to be a more conservative approach to reporting MRR as it more closely reflects the present value of these customers.

You can adjust two settings to exclude discounts:

• Subtract recurring discounts from MRR: Turn this on for your MRR to reflect any recurring discounts applied.
• Subtract one-time discounts from MRR: Turn this on for your MRR to reflect any one-time discounts applied.

These settings apply the same way to all coupons you use on Stripe, including subscription-level coupons, line-item level coupons, and stacked coupons. Permanent recurring discounts, are always subtracted from MRR.

Active Subscribers

You can configure when Stripe considers a subscriber to be active:

• At the subscription start: If you select this option, a subscription is considered active when the first billing period begins. This is the most common option.
• When the first payment is received: If you select this, the subscription is considered active when the first payment is received. Use this if you don’t want to consider subscribers active until they’ve paid their first invoice.

Churn

You can configure when Stripe will consider a subscriber to have churned. You have two options:

• Immediately: The subscription will count as churned the moment it is cancelled. This means a subscriber on an annual plan that cancels in month 1 will be considered churned in month 1.
• At the billing period end: The subscription will count as churned at the end of their billing period. This means a subscriber on an annual plan that cancels in month 1 will be considered churned on the final day of their annual plan on month 12.