The key business metrics from 8 SaaS startup pitch decks

When Mixpanel's co-founder Suhail Doshi open-sourced the pitch deck behind his company's $65M round and $865M valuation, he shared the link on Reddit. One comment stood out:

"There's nothing special about the pitch deck. The special sauce is the company...."

The commenter has a point. The secret behind any successful round is the company: the scope of the problem it solves, where it fits in the market, and whether the team can execute. But a pitch deck still has to do real work. It's often the one chance to tell that story concisely enough to move an investor. Even if your company is the secret sauce, your deck must prove it, and the business metrics you choose are a big part of how you do that.

As a marketer who has spent years in the SaaS startup space, I've always been drawn to patterns in pitch decks. Below, I dig into the metrics and KPIs that eight transparent, successful startups chose to share with the world. My major takeaways are at the bottom.

UPDATE: Check out Front App's new Series B slide deck.

Here are the most important slides from eight pitch decks, roughly newest to oldest, along with notes on the metrics each one highlighted:

Front App ($10M, Series A, 2016) - frontapp.com

Slide 8: Consistent organic growth

The metrics

• # Companies
• $ MRR (MRR grew 5.4 times in the past 12 months)

Slide 9: Low churn

The metrics

• % User Churn
• % MRR Churn
• % Net MRR Churn

Slide 12: Acquisition channels

The metrics

• % leads from organic growth
• # qualified demos / month / SDR
• % post-demo conversion
• $ ARR added / month / AE

Slide 13: Land and expand strategy

The metric

• % of MRR retained relative to starting month

Slide 14: Capital efficiency

The metrics

• $ spend in last 18 months to reach current $ ARR
• $ Monthly Burn
• # months expected until profitable

Slide 18: Projections

The metrics

• Expenses vs Revenue
• ARR
• Headcount

Pendo ($20M, Series B, 2016) - pendo.io

Slide 2: Overview

The metric

• Ending QTR $ ARR

Slide 9: User engagement

The metric

• Usage by role

Slide 15: Net new ARR growth

The metric

• Net New ARR, Churn, and Expansion over a 2-year period

Slide 16: Sales quota capacity

The metric

• Sales vs Sales Capacity

Slide 17: Cohort trending

The metrics

• Cohort Analysis
• ARR Cohort Build

Slide 18: New ASPs trending up

The metric

• Avg. Revenue per New Customer per quarter

Slide 19: Moving up market to serve enterprise customers

The metric

• Customers > $ per quarter

Mixpanel ($65M, Series B, 2014) - mixpanel.com

Slide 7: Monthly Recurring Revenue over time

The metric

• % Growth Rate for past 3 years

Slide 8: Sales KPIs

The metrics

• % YoY Growth, Revenue, # of Sales Reps
• Avg. revenue per customer / month
• # leads per month (% of new customers touched by sales)
• # new customers per month
• Avg. Monthly Revenue Churn Rate
• Sales payback rate in x months

Slide 9: Marketing KPIs

The metrics

• # leads
• Avg. revenue per customer / month
• % of customers who sign up and integrate
• % who become paid customers

Slide 10: Expansion plan

The metrics

• Key objectives for the following year (listed in full on the slide)

Mattermark ($6.5M, Series A, 2014) - mattermark.com

Slide 11

The metrics

• $ MRR
• % CAGR

Slide 12: 2015 goal

The metric

• Projected growth rate: $ MRR

Slide 13: Revenue by use case

The metric

• % from different customer segments

Slide 14: ARR growth rate

The metric

• VC MRR Growth Rate vs Biz Dev MRR Growth Rate (highlighting the fastest-growing customer segment)

Slide 20: 500K+ companies

The metric

• # of companies tracked by Mattermark

Slide 22: Pace

The metric

• # of future customers trackable using a new method

Contently ($9M, Series B, 2014) - contently.com

Slide 8: By the numbers

The metrics

• $ Gross Revenue and SaaS MRR
• $ Projected revenue run rate by end of year

Slide 9: Annualized value of customers closing in Q4

The metrics

• $ SaaS Revenue
• $ Marketplace Spend
• $ ACV

Intercom ($600K, Seed, 2012) - intercom.io

This was Intercom's first pitch deck, and it included no key metrics. At the friends-and-family seed stage, the idea matters more than the numbers.

Buffer ($500K, Seed, 2011) - buffer.com

Slide 5: Traction

The metrics

• # of paying users
• $ Annual Revenue run rate
• % margins
• # of users, % month-over-month growth
• # of updates (a platform-specific engagement measure)

Slide 6: Milestones

The metric

• Time series showing # of users and $ revenue over a 2-year period

Slide 7: Business model

The metrics

• % Churn
• LTV and CAC
• Projected Revenue at # of users

MOZ ($18M, Series B, 2009) - moz.com

This is my favourite pitch deck. Moz gives investors exactly what they need to believe the company understands its business and knows how to grow it. Every number tells a specific story about where the business is and where it's headed.

Slide 3: 5-year history timeline

The metrics

• $ Software Revenue
• $ Consulting Revenue
• # Monthly Visits

Slide 20: Where are we today

The metrics

• $ Estimated Revenue
• $ Current Revenue Run Rate
• # of Pro Subscribers
• # of New Free Trials / Day
• Avg. Customer Lifetime Value
• Implied Customer Life
• Avg. Cost of Paid Acquisition
• Avg. Monthly Rev / Subscriber

Slide 21: Where are we today (cont'd)

• % of Free Trials Converting to Paid
• Churn Rate in 1st 2 Paid Months
• Monthly Visits
• Email Subscribers
• Gross Margins
• Estimated Net Profit
• Staffing Costs per month
• Crawling, Serving, Hosting, and Processing Costs per month

Major takeaways

The pattern across all eight decks is clear: the metrics that land best are the ones that prove you understand your business well enough to grow it confidently. Investors aren't just looking for big numbers. They want to see that you know which numbers matter and why.

Here are four slides every SaaS startup pitch deck should include:

Traction

This is your chance to show the aha moment: the metric that proves your product clicks with customers. The strongest traction slides show customer growth, rising revenue, and improving unit economics all at once.

The number that matters most here is whether Lifetime Value (LTV) exceeds Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). If you can't demonstrate that clearly, it's hard to make a compelling case for investment. Get that ratio right and you're telling investors the business will get more efficient as it scales, not less.

Revenue model

Explain exactly how you make money. Show that your pricing is deliberate and that you understand the levers driving revenue growth.

Key metrics across these decks included ARPU, margins, cohort analysis, ARR, MRR, and % CAGR. The goal isn't to list every number; it's to show you know which ones determine whether the business works.

Sales, marketing, and expenses

This section shows investors how the money they put in will move through a machine that's already running. It's where you demonstrate command over your funnel: conversion rates, time to close, cost to acquire, and how you expand revenue from existing customers.

The best decks here answered three questions clearly: How do you get customers? How much does it cost? And how do you grow them once you have them?

Projections

Show your revenue forecast and explain what this round makes possible. Include your monthly burn rate before and after funding, and when you expect to reach profitability. Investors want to know what changes with their money, not just what the future looks like in a best-case scenario.

A final thanks to Attach, who collected all of these startup pitch decks into one area. If you want to explore beyond SaaS, their collection also includes Airbnb, Tinder, WeWork, YouTube, LinkedIn, BuzzFeed, and more.