SaaS growth playbook
📖 3 min readUpdated 2026-04-19
SaaS growth has specific mechanics: recurring revenue, compounding retention, expansion. Classic plays work.
Sequence
- PMF first (qualitative + 40% rule)
- Activation tuning
- Retention bar-raising
- Scale acquisition
- Expansion + pricing
Key metrics
- MRR
- Net Revenue Retention
- CAC payback
- Free-to-paid conversion
- Churn
Levers
- Onboarding → activation
- Feature adoption → retention
- Pricing + packaging → expansion