Project your user base and subscriber growth over 12-24 months. Model new signups, activation rate, free-to-paid conversion and churn to see MAU and paying customer trajectory.
For product-led growth (PLG) SaaS, the free-to-paid conversion funnel is the core growth engine. Understanding how many signups you need, what conversion rate achieves your growth targets, and how churn interacts with new paid additions is essential for forecasting MRR and capacity planning.
| Metric | Strong | Average | Weak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signup to Activation | 40%+ | 20–40% | <20% |
| Free to Paid Conversion | 10%+ | 4–10% | <4% |
| Monthly Paid Churn | <1% | 1–3% | >3% |
| Time to Value (activation) | <1 day | 1–7 days | >7 days |
Free-to-paid conversion rates: above 10% is excellent (Dropbox, Slack-tier), 5-10% is good, 2-5% is average, below 2% is concerning for freemium models. Conversion rates are heavily influenced by time-to-value, onboarding quality and the gap between free and paid plan value. Improving activation (getting users to their "aha moment") is typically more impactful than reducing pricing friction.