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Beyond CAC & LTV: The New SaaS Efficiency Metrics VCs Actually Care About in 2025

Author

Chintankumar Maisuria
July 14, 2025

In partnership with

Read time: 3 minutes.

Welcome to the 137th edition of The Growth Elements Newsletter. Every Monday and sometimes on Thursday, I write an essay on growth metrics & experiments and business case studies.

Today’s piece is for 8,000+ founders, operators, and leaders from businesses such as Shopify, Google, Hubspot, Zoho, Freshworks, Servcorp, Zomato, Postman, Razorpay and Zoom.

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SaaS founders continue to discuss CAC, LTV, and MRR.

But most top-tier investors have moved on.

Efficiency in 2025 isn’t just a finance KPI. It’s a survival metric.

Why Legacy Metrics Are No Longer Enough

  • CAC is often blended across channels, hiding inefficiencies

  • LTV is forward-looking and vulnerable to churn assumptions

  • MRR doesn’t say how efficiently you’re scaling it

These are still useful. But they don’t answer a deeper question:

“Is your startup capital-efficient, segment by segment, motion by motion?”

The New Metrics That Actually Matter

Here’s what VCs, CFOs, and top operators are tracking now:

Metric

Why It Matters

Burn Multiple = Net Burn / Net New ARR

Shows how much $ you're spending to add $1 of revenue. Target: <1.5x for efficient SaaS.

NRR by Segment

Not just NRR. But NRR split by ICP, deal size, and sales motion. Tells you where expansion actually lives.

Sales Efficiency per Rep

ARR per AE per quarter. If reps aren't >3-4x cost, it breaks.

Payback Period (by Channel)

Don’t average this. SEO vs outbound vs. paid needs to be tracked in silos.

Revenue per Employee (RPE)

World class benchmark: $300K+ for growth-stage SaaS. Closer to $500K in efficient teams.

Operator Insight: What We’re Tracking Inside My SaaS Stack

Across my advisory portfolio, we’ve shifted reporting cadence to focus on:

  • Burn Multiple updates monthly (with ARR attribution by motion)

  • RPE + role-specific output tracking (especially marketing & CS)

  • Channel-level payback, not just blended CAC

  • NRR sliced by segment, not just total

Why?

Because these metrics don’t just reflect performance.
They expose where your GTM machine is leaking money.

Final Take

If your dashboard still leads with CAC:LTV ratio and ARR growth.

You’re 18 months behind.

The most capital-efficient SaaS teams in 2025 are tracking:

  • Burn vs ARR by channel

  • Revenue per operator seat

  • Expansion by customer type

  • Sales ROI per motion

Growth is no longer enough. It needs to come with math that survives a boardroom.

That's it for today's article! I hope you found this essay insightful.

Wishing you a productive week ahead!

I always appreciate you reading.

Thanks,
Chintankumar Maisuria