Practitioner pattern · Phil Carter (Sells growth advisory services and a paid course built around the Subscription Value Loop framework and calculator)
Compare your last 12 months of metrics to similar apps to find your weakest spot
Unknownanalytics-attributionexperimentation
What they did
In the first 1-2 weeks with a client, a one-hour call fills a single spreadsheet with a couple dozen metrics, each averaged over the last 12 months to smooth seasonality (watch for big paywall or pricing changes in that window). Metrics cover value creation (sign-up rate, monthly retention at M1/M2/M3/M6/M12, annual retention Y1/Y2), value delivery (blended CPI, cost per trial, cost per subscriber) and value capture (trial start rate, trial conversion, install-to-paid, prices, plan mix, gross margin). Pick your category (11 options) and a percentile to compare against: P50 for indie or early apps, P75/P95 for funded startups. The red/green heat map shows gaps; first read LTV/CAC and payback, then drill into the biggest gaps. Then do deeper analysis and a subscriber survey to choose initiatives.
What happened
Guest uses it as a quick first-week diagnosis with clients; it set the first three months of work for an edtech client.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Using Subscription App Benchmarks to Make Better Growth Decisions — Phil Carter, Elemental Growth“Honestly, it's like I share the tool with the client and in a one hour call, we pull a lot of the metrics into the dashboard, and we sort of see the heat map of where the biggest gaps and opportunities are.”
“Usually, I recommend that companies enter the average across their last 12 months worth of data, just because if you have any seasonality in your business, or if there are other sort of peaks and valleys, a year's worth of data can help to smooth that out.”
“If you're an indie developer that's just getting started, I would say focus on P50. You want to be aiming for being better than average.”
Related topics
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