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Stripe Upgrades

Upgrades is a Stripe metric that measures the increase in revenue generated by customers who have upgraded to a higher pricing plan or subscription level.

With Databox you can track all your metrics from various data sources in one place.

  • About
  • Tech details
  • Notes

What Are Upgrades

Upgrades refer to the process of customers moving from one subscription tier to a higher or more advanced one, where they will gain access to additional features and functionality.
Upgrades are an essential metric for SaaS companies as they indicate the growth of customer accounts. They signify that customers see value in the product and are willing to invest more to gain greater benefits.

Tracking this metric is crucial for measuring expansion revenue, understanding customer behavior, and identifying opportunities for upselling.

How to Calculate Upgrades

To calculate upgrades, we need to divide the number of customers who upgraded their subscriptions by the total number of customers. This way, we can get the exact percentage.

Here’s the formula you can follow:

Upgrades = Number of customers who upgraded / Total number of customers

Let’s say you have a SaaS company with 500 customers. During a specific period, 50 customers upgraded their subscription plans.
Upgrades = 50 / 500
This leaves us with a 10% upgrade ratio.

What Is a Good Upgrade Ratio

A good upgrade ratio can vary depending on several factors, such as your target market, pricing model, and the specific stage of your SaaS business.
However, as a general guideline, a healthy upgrade ratio typically falls within the 10% to 30% range.

It’s important to note that a high upgrade ratio doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always better. Sometimes, a high ratio could indicate that you’re not initially capturing enough value in your lower-tier plans.
The best thing you can do is continuously monitor your historical data, track industry benchmarks, and evaluate your performance in relation to your specific business context to get a real sense of whether your numbers are good.

How to Increase the Number of Upgrades

To increase the number of upgrades for your product, you need to come up with effective strategies that will encourage your customers to move to higher-tier plans.
This can include offering additional value, highlighting the benefits of advanced features, and providing a seamless upgrade experience.

But if you’re looking for something more specific, here are some of the strategies that leading industry experts use in their businesses:

  • Boost retention by offering a next-year discount and a pause option: It’s important that you come up with innovative strategies for customer retention. Some useful ideas can be to offer customers a discount to upgrade for another year, but also include a pause option in case they decide to cancel the subscription. With a pause option, you’re offering them a chance to come back easier and keep their data within the software.
  • Launch a podcast campaign: Use podcasts as a PR strategy to create more meaningful relationships with your audience. Pitch industry podcast hosts with unique ideas and topics that you can bring to the table and make sure you come up with a captivating story before seeking this type of exposure. This is a great direct way to showcase more value to existing customers and influence their upgrade decision.
  • Expand your product line: How many upsell packages do you offer? If it’s less than two or three, it might be a good idea to expand your product line. Build out new product offerings every now and then to prevent upsell fatigue and use customer data to see what they would like to see included the most.

More resources to help you improve:

Visualizations

  • Databox visualization

    Number

    Used to show a simple Metric or to draw attention to one key number.

  • Databox visualization

    Pie Chart

    Used to illustrate numerical proportions through the size of the slices.

  • Databox visualization

    Bar and Line Chart

    Used to show comparisons between values.

How to track Upgrades in Databox?

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 Upgrades using Databox, follow these steps:

  1. 1
    Connect Stripe that contains the metric you want to track
  2. 2
    Select the metric you want to track from the list of available metrics
  3. 3
    Drag and drop the selected metric onto your dashboard
  4. 4
    Watch your dashboard populate in seconds
  5. 5
    Put Upgrades on the Performance screen
  6. 6
    Get Upgrades performance daily with Scorecards or as a weekly digest
  7. 7
    Set Goals to track and improve performance of Upgrades
Stripe integration with Databox Track Upgrades from Stripe in Databox GET STARTED

Basics

  • Description
    Upgrades is a Stripe metric that measures the increase in revenue generated by customers who have upgraded to a higher pricing plan or subscription level.
  • Category
    Payment Processing
  • Subcategory
    Subscriptions
  • Date Added
    2015-04-28
  • Cumulative Support
    Yes
  • Units
    No
  • Granularities
    hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly
  • Favorable Trend
    increasing
  • Historical Data
    Yes
  • Changing historical data
    No
  • Forecast Support
    Yes
  • Benchmark Support
    Yes
  • Media Support
    No
  • Dimension
    N/A
  • Metric Type
  • API Endpoint
    https://api.stripe.com/v1/events
  • The usage and limitations of the ‘Upgrades’ and ‘Downgrades’ Stripe metrics

    Usage
    Upgrades or downgrades are tracked when they actually happen. For example, if a user moved from PlanA ($59) to PlanB ($119) today, an upgrade of $60 will be tracked. The same logic will apply to downgrades.

    In cases where the user would switch back and forth, every upgrade and downgrade would be tracked and would influence the upgrade or downgrade amount in Databox. Therefore, Databox suggests using the Calculated Metrics to track the Net New Upgrade or Downgrade values.

    Below is an example of the MRR Upgrades metric and the same logic will apply for other Upgrades and Downgrades metrics.

    Net New MRR Upgrades = MRR Upgrades – MRR Downgrades

    Limitation
    To calculate upgrades, downgrades, and reactivations we use the /events endpoint. In accordance with the Stripe API documentation, Databox can collect only 30 days of historical data through this API endpoint.
    For example, if an upgrade occurred 31 days ago, it would not be pushed to and visible in Databox today.

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