A SaaS financial model with scenarios, built on your numbers

A SaaS model has to answer three questions: how many customers you will have, how much recurring revenue they bring, and how long your cash lasts while you get there. StartupModel builds that model in Excel from your own numbers. You get customers and an MRR waterfall, churn and expansion, CAC, LTV and runway, a full P&L, cash flow and balance sheet, plus a low / base / high scenario switch and a Checks sheet. Full costs $349; Light costs $149.

Download the sample SaaS model and inspect every formula before you buy.

How the revenue build works

Customers. New customers each month come from two sources:

• Organic and referral adds, entered per month and growing once a year;
• Paid adds = paid marketing budget ÷ paid customer acquisition cost (CAC).

Each month: closing customers = opening customers × (1 − monthly churn) + new customers.

MRR waterfall. Opening MRR, plus new MRR (new customers × MRR per new customer), plus expansion (a % of opening MRR per month), minus churned MRR, gives closing MRR. MRR per new customer rises once a year by your price increase.

Revenue is the average of opening and closing MRR for the period, so customers won or lost during a month count for half of it.

Deferred revenue. If some customers pay annually in advance, part of that cash is not yet earned. The model holds a simplified deferred revenue balance on the balance sheet. Its increase adds to operating cash flow, which is why annual billing helps runway.

The drivers you set

Every driver has a low, base and high value:

For costs and churn, the low case means higher values. The Checks sheet verifies that ordering for every driver, because a "downside" with lower churn is a common and misleading mistake.

The metrics investors ask about

The Dashboard (Full) or P&L sheet (Light) shows, for each year:

• customers and MRR at year end, and ARR (year-end MRR × 12);
• average MRR per customer;
• blended CAC (paid marketing spend ÷ all new customers, organic included);
• LTV (MRR per customer × gross margin ÷ monthly churn) and LTV ÷ CAC;
• CAC payback in months;
• net burn per month and runway in months.

Each is a live formula on the model's own numbers, so it changes when you change an assumption or flip the scenario.

What you get

Full — $349

• Dashboard with the low / base / high selector and the SaaS metrics
• Inputs sheet, every assumption in its own labelled cell
• Monthly sheet: customers, MRR waterfall, revenue, costs, deferred revenue, working capital, loan and equity
• Annual P&L, cash flow statement and balance sheet
• Headcount and payroll plan by role
• Checks sheet

Light — $149

• Inputs, P&L with period detail and the SaaS metrics, and the Checks sheet. Enough to test the unit economics before you build a full fundraising pack. You can upgrade to Full by paying the difference.

Before release, every scenario and year is recomputed independently in plain Python and must match the workbook within $1. That covers the P&L, cash and balance sheet, plus year-end customers, year-end MRR and new customers per year. The Checks sheet must show no FAIL. That sheet stays in your file, so an investor's analyst can see it too.

Sample

The sample is an early-stage SaaS company: Full tier, three years of monthly detail, all three scenarios. Open the Inputs sheet, change monthly churn, then watch MRR, LTV, runway and the balance sheet follow.

Download the sample SaaS model (.xlsx)

What a good SaaS model shows a seed investor

1. A bottom-up revenue build. Customers and MRR from acquisition, churn and pricing. Not "1% of a $10bn market".
2. Unit economics that hang together. CAC, LTV and payback computed from the same drivers that produce revenue, not typed in separately.
3. Runway in every scenario. How many months the round buys in the low case, and what has to be true for the high case.
4. A hiring plan tied to the plan. Payroll is usually the largest cost line; it should come from roles and start dates, not a % of revenue.
5. Three statements that agree. A balance sheet that balances in every month, and cash that reconciles.

Common mistakes in SaaS models

• Churn applied to customers but not to MRR, or vice versa. The waterfall should treat both consistently.
• CAC that ignores organic customers, or LTV that ignores gross margin.
• Annual prepayments counted as revenue when the cash arrives.
• Headcount as a % of revenue. Teams are hired in steps, not percentages.
• One scenario. Every investor will ask what happens if growth is half the plan.

Questions

Is this for pre-revenue startups? Yes. Set paying customers at start to zero and the model builds from your acquisition plan.

Does it handle annual contracts? Partly. You set the share of MRR billed annually in advance; the model holds the deferred revenue and the cash timing in a simplified way. Multi-year contracts and usage-based pricing are not modelled.

Can I use it for a marketplace or hardware business? Not well; it's built for subscription software. Pick the business type in the questionnaire and it will tell you if no template fits.

What if the model doesn't fit my business? Write to us within 7 days and we refund the full amount.

See also: Financial model for investors · AI model generators vs a verified model · All custom financial models

Build my SaaS model — from $149