Active Subscriptions metric refers to the number of recurring payment plans that currently have an active or past due status.
With Databox you can track all your metrics from various data sources in one place.
Active subscriptions refer to the number of paying customers that are currently subscribed to a particular SaaS offering within a given period. Simply put, It’s the number of active users who have an ongoing commitment to using the software and are paying for the service on a regular basis, typically monthly or annually.
To calculate active subscriptions, you need to first identify these two things:
With this in mind, here is the formula you can follow:
Active Subscriptions = Number of customers with active subscriptions at the end of the period – Number of new subscriptions added during the period + Number of subscriptions canceled during the period
Let’s say you are calculating active subscriptions for the month of May.
At the beginning of May, you had 500 active subscriptions. During the month, you added 100 new subscriptions and saw 50 customers cancel their subscriptions during the same period.
Active Subscriptions = 500 (initial subscriptions) + 100 (new subscriptions) – 50 (canceled subscriptions)
So, the number of active subscriptions for the month of May is 550.
Remember that this is a simplified example and some calculations could also involve additional factors such as upgrades, downgrades, and reactivations.
Seeing that we’re talking about a concrete number of active subscriptions, there isn’t really any universal figure that all SaaS businesses should aim for.
There are numerous factors that will influence it, with the company stage being at the forefront.
For example, relatively new or early-stage SaaS companies typically aim for a few hundred active subscriptions for a positive start.
On the other hand, establishes SaaS businesses might consider tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of active subscriptions as a healthy achievement. At this stage, it’s crucial to focus on maintaining high customer retention rates and optimizing customer lifetime value.
There’s also some more concrete data we extracted from our Benchmark Groups product.
A good number of active subscriptions in Stripe is around 300 a month, according to Stripe Benchmarks for All Companies.
If you want to stay on top of future trends and be able to instantly compare your performance to companies just like yours (in any given industry), you can join our Benchmark Groups – it’s free for everyone!
Increasing the number of active subscriptions is a critical objective for any modern SaaS organization.
By expanding your customer base and retaining existing customers, you can enhance your revenue streams and establish a strong foundation for long-term sustainability
Here are some expert strategies we found over the years that can help you do just that:
More resources to help you improve:
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Databox is a business analytics software that allows you to track and visualize your most important metrics from any data source in one centralized platform.
To track Active Subscriptions using Databox, follow these steps:
Stripe dashboard template provides you with insights about customer, payments, mrr, churn and more.
Use this Stripe report to share important ecommerce insights into churn rate, MRR growth, revenue volume, new customers, and more.
Due to the pagination limitation of the Stripe integration, the maximum value that can be displayed in Databox for the ‘Active Subscriptions’ metric is 100,000 (100k) for any Date Range.
Active subscription data helps businesses measure customer growth, assess customer engagement and retention, track revenue generation, and evaluate the success of acquisition and retention strategies.
With these insights, they can make better data-driven decisions to optimize pricing, organize marketing efforts, identify customer support issues, and improve product development.
There are multiple ways you can use active subscription data to your advantage.
For starters, you can identify growth opportunities, establish better revenue forecasting, guide marketing strategies, and refine your pricing models.
Overall, active subscription data is essential for driving business growth and it can play a big part in improving overall customer satisfaction.
Active Customers is a metric that measures the total number of customers that have engaged in a paid transaction with a business during a given period of time.
Active Trialing Customers is a metric that measures the number of customers who are currently in a trial period for a product or service.
ARPU is the measure of monthly or annual revenue generated by a single customer. It helps to understand the overall performance of a subscription business by tracking revenue trends.
Lifetime Value (LTV) measures the total revenue a customer will bring to a business over their entire lifespan as a customer.
Revenue Churn Rate measures the amount of revenue lost from canceled or downgraded subscriptions over a given period of time.
ARR (excl. Canceled Subscriptions) stands for Annual Recurring Revenue excluding Canceled Subscriptions, a metric that calculates the total amount of revenue a SaaS company generates from its recurring subscription fees in a given year. It's a key metric to measure the growth and predict the future revenue of a SaaS business.
Churned MRR measures the loss or decline in revenue generated from existing customers due to cancellations, downgrades, or pricing changes.
Activations represent the total number of times an app has been installed and opened for the first time on a device. It helps to track the app's user acquisition and adoption rate over time.
Active Discounted Subscriptions metric tracks the number of active subscriptions that were purchased using a discount or promotion.
Active Trials is a metric that shows the number of users who are currently using a trial version of your app or subscription.
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