Lumen Ledger, a bookkeeping SaaS
SaaS KPI slide example with eight numbers on one wall
A SaaS KPI slide has to let a board read the quarter in about twenty seconds, so the work is choosing the eight numbers, not arranging them. This one belongs to Lumen Ledger, a fictional bookkeeping product, and every tile carries a figure plus the line of context that stops it being read the wrong way.
What is on the slide
- Eyebrow and headline
- LUMEN LEDGER above the headline Q2 at a glance.
- Growth tiles
- ARR $4.2M, up 34% on Q2 last year. Net revenue retention 118%, expansion beating churn for a sixth quarter.
- Quality tiles
- Gross churn 1.4% monthly by firm, flat since January. CAC payback 11 months, blended across self serve and sales led.
- Scale tiles
- 612 paying firms, a net 74 added, none larger than 40 seats. Average revenue per account $571 a month, up from $528 in Q1.
- Safety tiles
- Gross margin 81% after hosting, support and payment fees. Cash runway 22 months at the current burn of $148k a month.
When this is the right slide
Reach for a wall of eight when the audience already knows the business and wants the whole quarter at once, with no single number ranked above the rest.
What to swap it for
Metrics: KPI Scorecard Table. Swap to the scorecard table when each metric needs a target and a variance column beside the actual, which a tile wall has no room for.
What this slide shows
The slide is one 1920 by 1080 canvas holding an eyebrow, a headline and eight tiles in a four by two grid. The eyebrow reads LUMEN LEDGER and the headline reads Q2 at a glance, which names the period so no tile has to repeat it. Each tile carries three things in a fixed order: an uppercase label, a display size figure, and a context line of about forty characters. The first row runs ARR $4.2M, net revenue retention 118%, gross churn 1.4% and CAC payback 11 months. The second row runs 612 paying firms, average revenue per account $571, gross margin 81% and cash runway 22 months. Tiles alternate tint so the grid reads as pairs rather than as a block of colour, and the page number sits in the theme footer at the bottom right. Nothing else is on the canvas: no logo lockup, no chart, no commentary column. The whole slide is the eight numbers and the eight sentences that qualify them, which is the ceiling for a wall of this kind before the reader starts skipping tiles.
Who this slide is for and when to use it
The audience is a board, an investor update reader or an internal leadership group that already knows what the product does. They are not being introduced to the business, they are checking whether the quarter held, so the slide skips definitions and goes straight to figures. It works as the second or third slide in a quarterly pack, after the one line summary and before whichever number needs a chart of its own. It does not work as a slide you talk to for ten minutes, because eight tiles give a presenter no narrative order to follow out loud. Use it as a reference wall that the room can keep looking at while the discussion moves, then put the single metric that is in trouble on its own slide straight afterwards, where a trend line or a bridge can carry the argument.
How to adapt it
First, swap the metric set for the business model. A marketplace replaces ARR and net revenue retention with gross merchandise value and take rate, an agency replaces them with utilisation and average project value, and a nonprofit replaces them with funds raised and cost per beneficiary. Keep the count at eight and keep the pairs, because the grid reads as four related pairs, not as eight unrelated facts. Second, move a number out when it needs a target. A tile shows an actual and a direction, never an actual against a plan, so a metric that only means something next to its target belongs in a scorecard table where the target has a column. Third, cut to six tiles when the audience is external. Investors and partners read fewer numbers more carefully, and the six that survive should be the ones a reader could ask a follow up question about. Whichever set you land on, write the context line last, once all eight figures are final, so the qualifiers describe the numbers that are actually on the slide.
What makes this slide work
The tiles reconcile with each other
Average revenue per account of $571 a month across 612 paying firms annualises to about $4.19M, which is the $4.2M ARR tile in the top left. A reader who does that arithmetic finds the slide holds, and a reader who does not still gets a consistent story. Tiles that cannot be multiplied together are the fastest way to lose a finance audience.
Every figure carries its qualifier
Churn reads 1.4% with the words monthly and by firm underneath, because a churn number without a period and a unit can mean four different things. CAC payback says blended across self serve and sales led, so nobody assumes it is the enterprise figure. The context line is one short sentence, never a second metric.
The order answers questions in the order they are asked
Growth sits in the first two tiles, retention quality in the next two, scale in the middle of the second row, and margin and runway last. That is the order a board asks about a subscription business, so the eye travels the way the conversation will. Reordering the same eight tiles alphabetically would make the same numbers feel unsorted.
Questions people ask
How many KPIs should a SaaS slide show?
Eight is the practical ceiling for one wall, and this slide uses all eight. Past that, tiles shrink, context lines get cut and readers start skipping. If you have twelve metrics that matter, put eight on the wall and give the other four their own slide with a chart, rather than squeezing twelve tiles into the same space.
What metrics belong on a SaaS KPI slide?
Two on growth, two on retention quality, two on scale and two on financial safety. Here that is ARR and net revenue retention, gross churn and CAC payback, paying firms and revenue per account, then gross margin and cash runway. The pattern travels: pick the pairs first, then decide which exact metric fills each slot.
Should the slide show ARR or MRR?
Use whichever the audience budgets in. Boards and investors usually think in annual recurring revenue, so this slide shows ARR $4.2M. A weekly internal review often thinks in monthly recurring revenue instead. What matters is picking one and keeping every other tile consistent with it, so revenue per account is monthly and the runway is in months.
How do you show churn without it being misread?
Write the period and the unit next to the number. This slide says 1.4% monthly by firm, which cannot be confused with an annual dollar churn figure. If you report both logo churn and revenue churn, give them separate tiles rather than one tile with two numbers, because a reader will remember the figure and forget which one it was.
When should a KPI wall become a table instead?
The moment a target matters as much as the actual. A tile can hold a figure and a short context line, but not an actual, a plan and a variance side by side. A scorecard table gives each of those a column and keeps eight rows readable, which is the right layout for a board that debates variances rather than levels.
Does the slide work if some numbers went backwards?
Yes, and hiding the bad tile is what costs you the room. Leave the metric in, write the honest context line, and make the next slide the one that explains it. A wall where every context line says the number improved reads as a selection, and a board that senses selection stops trusting the tiles that are genuinely good.
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