The 5 KPIs Every Growth-Stage SaaS Company Should Monitor Regularly

Growth-stage SaaS companies live and die by their ability to adapt—and that means having a finger on the pulse of the business at all times. While monthly or quarterly reviews offer value, they’re often too slow to catch compounding problems or act on sudden opportunities.

We do not live in a perfect world—and when infrastructure or systems cannot keep up, we must take a pragmatic approach. Tracking a handful of key performance indicators (KPIs) as frequently as your reporting cadence and data challenges allow is one of the smartest habits you can build into your operating rhythm.

1. Net New ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
Formula: Net New ARR = New ARR – Churned ARR
Net New ARR shows how much recurring revenue you’re actually adding—new sales minus churn. It’s your growth engine in a single number.

Why it matters: If Net New ARR is trending down, it could signal pipeline issues, rep ramp challenges, or customer dissatisfaction—long before it shows up in formal reports.

2. Sales Pipeline Coverage
Formula: Pipeline Coverage = Total Pipeline / Target Revenue for Period
How much pipeline do you have compared to your quota for the next 30, 60, and 90 days?

Why it matters: Identifying churn trends alongside strong communication with your sales organization can provide valuable insight into where expectations are being misaligned or customer relationships are breaking down. This collaboration can help drive meaningful improvements in future retention efforts.

Signs of churn often appear in usage data, support tickets, or engagement drops. Catching it early allows you to act before revenue walks out the door. Tracking dollar churn provides an even clearer lens into the financial impact.

4. Cash Burn
Formula: Cash Burn = Cash Inflows – Cash Outflows
Track your operating cash outflow versus plan.

Why it matters: Growth can mask burn. Maintaining visibility helps you stay in control, particularly if you are pre-profit or venture-backed. There is always a major focus on cash—tracking burn as often as you are able to report it can give your team confidence around your 13-week rolling cash forecast.

5. Support or Response Time (Time to Answer)
While not strictly financial, this operational KPI heavily influences retention and customer experience.

Why it matters: Spikes can indicate resourcing issues or product friction. These often lead to churn or missed upsell opportunities.

How to Operationalize These KPIs

• Dashboards: Use tools like Mosaic, ChartMogul, or simple spreadsheets to monitor KPIs at your preferred cadence. The right platform is going to depend on the sophistication of the organization and its data not the top line.

• Regular Syncs: Align them with your team’s natural reporting rhythm—weekly, monthly, or whatever cadence your team can maintain.

• Owners & Triggers: Assign metric owners and define thresholds that require action.

Make KPI Reviews a Habit, Not a Hassle
Regular KPI reviews are about creating agility in your business. You do not need a bloated dashboard—just a focused set of indicators tied to your strategic goals that all teams are aware of.

KPIs are especially powerful because there is no universal set that works for every business. And that’s the beauty—they are yours to define. Choose the ones that your leadership team and stakeholders view as true drivers of success. For example, a cybersecurity company that offers a hardware device alongside its SaaS service may need to track device return rate or deployment success rate—metrics a pure software company would never consider.

If you are only looking at these metrics quarterly, you are missing critical opportunities to course-correct or accelerate.

Need Help Building a SaaS KPI Dashboard?
If you want help identifying the right KPIs for your stage or building a dashboard your team will actually use, let’s talk. I work with growth-stage SaaS companies to design metrics, forecasts, and strategies that actually move the needle.