Measuring What Matters: 5 Payments KPIs That Drive SaaS Growth

For SaaS platforms, embedded payments have become a key growth driver. By integrating payments directly into your software, you can unlock new revenue, enhance the customer experience, and increase retention through a seamless, all-in-one solution.

As the embedded payments market continues to expand across industries, the opportunity for software providers is clear: own more of the payment flow, deliver more value, and strengthen your bottom line. But to fully realize that potential, you need to know how to measure success.

This blog outlines five essential metrics every SaaS platform should track to gauge ROI from their payments integration.

1. Net Revenue

Why It Matters

Net revenue is the clearest indicator of how a payments integration is impacting your bottom line. For SaaS platforms, it reveals the true profitability of embedding payments, not just the volume of transactions processed. Tracking net revenue helps you see whether payments are adding sustainable value or simply increasing activity without meaningful margin gains.

How to Measure It

Start by establishing a baseline: how much revenue your platform generated before integrating payments. Then compare that to your post-integration results, focusing on incremental gains like shared transaction fees, improved margins, or new revenue streams created by payments.
Key indicators include revenue per customer, average transaction value, and take rate.

Key Drivers

Several factors can drive net revenue growth after implementing embedded payments. Offering bundled plans or premium services that include payments can create natural upselling and cross-selling opportunities. A payments integration also opens the door to new monetization models, such as transaction-based fees, subscription billing, or digital add-ons. Beyond revenue generation, operational efficiencies like reducing reliance on third-party payment platforms, lowering processing friction, and streamlining manual workflows can further boost your net revenue by cutting costs.

Implementation Tip

Set up clear “before and after” dashboards to measure net revenue changes over time. Segment your customers into two groups; those using embedded payments and those not yet migrated to understand where payments are driving the biggest lift.

2. Net-New Acquisition

Why It Matters

Net-new acquisition measures the number of customers or deals directly attributable to your payments-enabled offering. For SaaS platforms, embedding payments can differentiate your product in a crowded market, making it more attractive to prospective customers and giving your sales team a tangible advantage in the buying process.

How to Measure It

To track net-new acquisition, monitor new customer sign-ups following the launch of your embedded payments feature. Where possible, attribute deals in which payments played a deciding role by asking whether the integration influenced the purchase decision. Comparing win rates before and after the payments enablement can help quantify the impact and demonstrate clear ROI.

Key Drivers

Several strategies can drive net-new acquisition after adding embedded payments. Marketing and sales messaging should clearly emphasize payments as a core value proposition, highlighting convenience, speed, and efficiency. Equipping your sales team with the right tools and talking points ensures they can articulate the benefits of integrated payments, from simpler billing to a more seamless user experience. Additionally, launch incentives such as special pricing or discounts for customers who adopt payments can accelerate adoption and attract new business.

Implementation Tip

Use CRM tagging or custom fields to mark deals influenced by embedded payments, making it easier to segment and analyze data. Benchmark average acquisition cost and timeline both before and after the integration to understand the real impact of payments on new customer growth.

3. Payment Attachment Rate

Why It Matters

Payment attachment rate measures the percentage of customers or transactions that adopt your embedded payments feature. This metric helps showcase how many of your users are leveraging payments within your platform and how deeply the feature is integrated into their workflows.

How to Measure It

To calculate attachment rate, divide the number of customers using the embedded payments feature by the total number of eligible customers, then multiply by 100. Beyond the adoption rate, it’s also important to track the transaction volume processed via embedded payments relative to overall transaction volume, which provides insight into the intensity of feature usage.

Key Drivers

Attachment rate is influenced by several factors, starting with onboarding and activation: the easier it is for customers to turn on and use payments, the higher the adoption. User experience also plays a major role. A seamless, intuitive payments flow integrated directly into your platform encourages regular usage. Additionally, incentives such as volume discounts, referral bonuses, or early-adopter perks can motivate customers to engage with the feature more quickly and consistently.

Implementation Tip

Segment your customers by size, cohort, or tenure to help identify which groups adopt payments most quickly. Monitor attachment rate trends over time, ensuring that adoption grows progressively as users become more familiar and comfortable with the feature.

4. Churn Rates

Why It Matters

Churn measures the rate at which customers stop using your software or stop transacting through your platform. For SaaS businesses, reducing churn is critical to sustaining growth. Embedded payments can improve customer stickiness by providing additional value, simplifying workflows, and creating a more integrated, indispensable platform experience.

How to Measure It

Churn rate is calculated by dividing the number of customers lost during a period by the total number of customers at the start of that period, then multiplying by 100. In addition to counting customers, tracking revenue churn, the amount of recurring revenue lost, helps capture the financial impact of departures. It’s also useful to track payments-specific churn, such as customers who stop using your embedded payments feature or switch to an external solution.

Key Drivers

Payments can influence churn in several ways. When embedded payments provide real value like convenience, faster transactions, or cost savings, customers are more likely to stay. Conversely, poor billing experiences, such as failed transactions, disputes, or chargebacks, can drive users away. Structuring contracts or offering incentives to maintain long-term usage can further reduce churn, making your platform an integral part of your customers’ operations.

Implementation Tip

Create a churn dashboard that segments customers by whether they use embedded payments or not. For customers who do churn, consider conducting exit interviews or surveys to understand if the payments experience influenced their decision to leave.

5. The Rule of 40 (for SaaS Health)

Why It Matters

The Rule of 40 is a widely used benchmark for SaaS business health. It combines growth and profitability by adding your growth rate percentage to your profit margin percentage, with a combined target of 40% or higher. This high-level metric provides a quick check on whether a SaaS business is balancing growth with sustainable profitability.

How to Measure It

Growth rate can be measured annually or quarterly, using revenue growth or Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth as the indicator. Profit margin can be calculated as operating margin or adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, and Amortization (EBITDA) margin. For example, if a company achieves 25% growth and an 18% margin, the sum is 43%, which is a healthy balance between scaling and profitability.

Impacts from Embedded Payments

Embedded payments can positively influence both sides of the Rule of 40 equation. Payments revenue and improved margins contribute directly to profitability, while the enhanced value proposition can accelerate customer acquisition and revenue growth. Additionally, operational efficiencies from integrated payments, such as reduced processing costs and fewer manual workflows, can further boost margins and overall business health.

Implementation Tip

Monitor the Rule of 40 quarterly to track trends and ensure your business is moving in the right direction. For the most accurate view, combine it with the other four metrics; net revenue, net-new acquisition, payment attachment rate, and churn, to build a comprehensive dashboard that reflects both growth and operational health.

Turn Payments Metrics into Measurable Growth

Embedded payments can fuel meaningful growth for SaaS platforms but only when you track the right metrics and act on the insights they reveal. The five metrics previously outlined; net revenue, net-new acquisition, payment attachment rate, churn, and the Rule of 40 work together to show the true financial and operational impact of your payments integration.

Measuring ROI isn’t a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process. By aligning teams around shared data, benchmarking your current performance, and refining your strategy as adoption grows, you can turn embedded payments into a consistent driver of growth and retention.

Ready to see how embedded payments can elevate your platform’s ROI? Learn more about Xplor Pay’s embedded payments solutions.