Average Revenue per User (ARPU)
Total revenue in a period divided by the number of users or accounts in that period, showing the revenue earned per customer.
ARPU shows whether growth comes from more customers or from more revenue per customer, which guides pricing, packaging and how much a company can spend to acquire each user.
A SaaS company earns $180,000 in monthly recurring revenue from 600 paying accounts, so ARPU = $180,000 ÷ 600 = $300. After a new tier launches, ARPU rises to $330 while account count stays flat, so growth came from expansion.
An average hides distribution: a few large accounts can lift ARPU while most users spend less. Results also change with definitions, such as whether free users, one-time fees or annual prepayments are included.
ARPU is calculated as total revenue for a period divided by the number of users or accounts in that period, often the average of opening and closing counts. In B2B SaaS the same formula is often called ARPA (per account), uses Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and excludes free plans; ARPPU counts only paying users. Multiplied by gross margin and divided by churn rate, ARPU gives a simple estimate of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
Performance Advertising
ChartMogul — ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account) — https://chartmogul.com/saas-metrics/arpa/; DiGGrowth — Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) — https://diggrowth.com/kpi/average-revenue-per-user-arpu/