Question 1

What is a good SaaS health score?

Accepted Answer

The calculator scores your SaaS from 0-100 based on five weighted metrics: monthly churn, MRR growth, early (90-day) churn, refund & dispute rate, and expansion rate. A score of 85+ is Exceptional, 70-84 is Healthy, 50-69 Needs work, and below 50 is Critical.

Question 2

How is the SaaS health score calculated?

Accepted Answer

Each metric you enter is scored from 0 to 100 against industry benchmarks, then combined into a weighted average: churn (30%), MRR growth (25%), early churn (20%), refund & dispute rate (15%), and expansion rate (10%). Churn and growth carry the most weight because they compound the most over time.

Question 3

What counts as a good monthly churn rate for SaaS?

Accepted Answer

Monthly churn of 0.5% or below scores as best-in-class, 1-2% is healthy, and above 3.5% is flagged as a concern. Monthly churn compounds fast - even 5% a month means losing roughly half your customer base in a year.

Question 4

What is early churn and why is it scored separately from overall churn?

Accepted Answer

Early churn is the percentage of new customers who cancel within their first 90 days. It's weighted at 20% because it's the earliest signal of an activation or onboarding problem - a customer who churns in week two was never going to become a long-term account, no matter how good later retention efforts are.

Question 5

What's a healthy MRR growth rate for a SaaS startup?

Accepted Answer

10-20% month-over-month is considered healthy, and 20%+ is best-in-class. Below 5% is flagged as a concern since it usually signals growth too slow to reach a fundable trajectory or profitability within a normal runway.

Question 6

Is a high refund and dispute rate a problem?

Accepted Answer

Yes, particularly above 7% of charges. A high refund or dispute rate almost always signals customers were surprised by what they were charged or what the product actually does - it's usually an expectations problem at signup rather than a product problem.

Question 7

How is this different from Chartsy's other free SaaS tools?

Accepted Answer

The SaaS Metrics Cheat Sheet explains what each metric means, and the SaaS Pricing Calculator models how price changes affect MRR. This tool instead scores your actual current numbers against industry benchmarks in a single pass and tells you exactly which one metric to fix first.

Frequently Asked Questions