ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User, or per Account — ARPA) is total recurring revenue divided by the number of active customers in a period. In SaaS it is almost always computed monthly: MRR ÷ active customers.
Formula
Worked example
MRR of $46,000 across 575 customers gives ARPU of $80/month. If next quarter ARPU rises to $92 with flat customer count, expansion is doing the work.
ARPU trends reveal pricing power and mix shift: rising ARPU means customers are upgrading, moving up-market, or your new-customer mix is richer. It also feeds directly into LTV and CAC payback, so an ARPU error propagates through your whole unit-economics model.
Decide once whether the denominator is users or accounts and never mix them mid-analysis — a 500-seat enterprise account counted as 500 "users" will flatter one metric and wreck another.
Compute it: LTV calculator