Been tracking month-over-month user growth but realizing it doesn’t tell the full story about actual business health.
Starting to think we need different metrics that show sustainability rather than just raw growth numbers.
What growth calculations actually matter for long-term success?
Revenue per cohort over time beats vanity metrics every time. Track how much each monthly cohort generates after 3, 6, and 12 months. If newer cohorts make less money than older ones at the same age, your growth is hollow. Also watch retention-adjusted growth. Take your new users and multiply by 6-month retention rate. That’s your real growth number. If you’re adding 1000 users but only 100 stick around, you’re not growing 1000.
Churn rate tells you more than new signups. If you’re losing users faster than adding them, growth numbers lie.
Track how many users still pay after month six.
Focus on net revenue retention from your paying users instead of total user counts.
If your existing customers are upgrading and spending more over time, that shows real business health. I track how much revenue grows from the same group of users month after month.
Also measure time to first purchase for new users. When that number gets longer, your growth quality is dropping even if you add more users.
LTV to CAC ratio saved me from chasing bad growth multiple times. If you’re spending $50 to acquire users who only generate $30 lifetime value, those growth numbers look good on paper but kill your business.
I also track what I call “profitable growth rate” - only count new users who actually hit positive unit economics within 90 days. Sounds harsh but it filters out the users who download, maybe convert once, then disappear.
Another thing that helped: measuring growth efficiency month over month. How much did you spend to generate each incremental dollar of sustainable revenue? When that number starts climbing, your growth is getting more expensive even if user numbers look good.