SaaS benchmarks that actually matter: CAC, LTV and the 4× rule
Conversion, churn, LTV/CAC — the handful of ranges from real companies you should compare yourself against before you trust your own plan.
Benchmarks are not trophies — they are a mirror. The value is not in beating a median; it is in seeing where your own assumptions drift from what real companies in your space actually achieve. A few ranges are worth memorizing.
The conversion funnel
For B2B SaaS, a median visit-to-signup of around 3.5% and signup-to-paid near 6% are the gravity your funnel works against. If your plan quietly assumes double those rates, the plan is the problem — not the market.
- Visit → signup: ~3.5% median (B2B SaaS)
- Signup → paid: ~6% median (B2B SaaS)
- Monthly churn: ~3.5% is healthy; 8% is an e-commerce reality
- LTV / CAC: 4× is the floor, not the target
Why the floor is 4×, not 3×
An LTV/CAC of 3× looks fine until you remember that LTV is a forecast and CAC is a fact. The extra margin absorbs the optimism baked into every lifetime-value estimate. Companies that plan to 4× and land at 3× survive; companies that plan to 3× and land at 2× do not.
Curated ranges from real companies are the comparison you cannot run on your own data alone.
