How to track product metrics using Baremetrics

Tracking product metrics is essential for understanding your business’s health, optimizing revenue streams, and improving overall customer experience. Baremetrics is a powerful tool designed to make subscription and financial metrics clear and accessible, especially for those without a technical background. By leveraging Baremetrics, businesses can move beyond raw data and gain actionable insights that drive growth. In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up and use Baremetrics to track key product performance metrics effectively, without needing to write any code, allowing anyone to make data-driven decisions.

What you will build

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully configured Baremetrics dashboard that displays crucial metrics such as Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), churn rate, customer lifetime value (LTV), and active subscriptions. These metrics are vital for subscription-based businesses to track growth, profitability, and customer retention. This setup enables you to monitor your subscription-based business product metrics in one centralized place, greatly simplifying the complexity of customer and revenue analytics.

With your metrics tracked through Baremetrics, you will gain real-time insights into your product’s growth trends and customer behavior. This empowers data-driven decisions to optimize pricing, reduce churn, and increase customer satisfaction. The dashboard’s visualizations make it easy to spot trends, fluctuations, and anomalies quickly, helping you pivot strategies as needed to maximize revenue and retain customers effectively.

Prerequisites

• A Baremetrics account. You can sign up for a free trial at Baremetrics official site. The trial lets you explore the platform without any commitment.
• A Stripe, Braintree, or Recurly account with active product subscriptions or payments, as Baremetrics relies on integration with these platforms to pull financial data. Ensure that your subscription data is set up properly within these platforms before integrating.
• Access to your payment provider dashboard to generate API keys and authorize connections securely. Having administrative access or the appropriate permissions is necessary to complete the integration.
• Basic familiarity with navigating web apps and signing in to online accounts. While no coding is necessary, comfort with online platforms will help with setup.
• A stable internet connection and a desktop or laptop computer for best experience. Some features may not be fully supported on mobile browsers.

Step-by-step tutorial

1. Create and verify your Baremetrics account
   • Go to baremetrics.com and click Get Started or Start Free Trial. Review the pricing and plan options if you want to understand the features available beyond the trial.
   • Fill in your email, password, and company information accurately. Use a secure password and ensure that your company details match those of your payment provider for seamless integration.
   • Verify your email address through the verification email sent to your inbox. Check your spam or junk folder if you do not receive it promptly. This step is crucial to activate your account and gain full access.
   • Sign in to your new Baremetrics dashboard to continue with setup. Familiarize yourself with the user interface before proceeding to integration.
2. Connect your payment provider
   • In the Baremetrics dashboard, click Add Data Source or Connect Stripe (or your relevant provider). This will initiate the integration wizard.
   • Follow the prompts to securely connect your Stripe, Braintree, or Recurly account by logging in and authorizing access. Be sure to review the permissions requested to ensure you are comfortable sharing the required data.
   • Wait for Baremetrics to import your subscription and payment data. This process typically takes a few minutes but may extend depending on the size and complexity of your data. Avoid closing the browser tab during import to prevent connection interruptions.
   • Once the data import is complete, verify that your data has been pulled correctly by reviewing sample reports and metrics.
3. Configure your data settings
   • Go to the Settings tab within Baremetrics to ensure your account is tailored to your business context.
   • Set your company timezone, currency, and other preferences to ensure accurate metric calculations. Incorrect settings here can skew revenue or churn calculations, so double-check these values match your operational region and currency.
   • If needed, customize filters to segment your customers by product plan, subscription status, or other criteria. This setup helps you analyze different customer cohorts or product lines separately.
   • Configure your fiscal year and billing cycles if your business operates outside typical monthly cycles, ensuring metrics like MRR are calculated appropriately.
4. Explore the default dashboards
   • Navigate to the Overview page to review key metrics like MRR, churn rate, and customer count. This page provides a quick snapshot of your business health.
   • Hover over graphs to view detailed data points and trends over specific time frames. These insights can reveal seasonality patterns or unusual spikes/drops.
   • Use the date range selector to analyze metrics for bespoke periods such as monthly, quarterly, or custom time frames. Regularly reviewing different periods aids in comparative analysis.
   • Experiment with dashboard widgets to understand what each metric represents and how changes affect your business.
5. Create custom metrics and segments
   • Under the Metrics or Segments section, click New Metric or New Segment to start personalizing reports.
   • Define the parameters, such as tracking only specific product subscriptions or geographic customer segments. This helps you understand performance variances across markets or products.
   • Use logical conditions and filters to refine segments. For example, you may want to track customers who upgraded their subscription in the last 30 days or those on an annual plan.
   • Save your custom metrics to include them in reports and dashboards, then schedule regular reviews to keep insights relevant.
6. Set up alerts and notifications
   • Access the Alerts tab and click Create Alert to proactively monitor critical metrics.
   • Choose metric thresholds to trigger notifications, for example, if monthly churn exceeds 5%, MRR drops suddenly, or new subscriptions fall below a target. Setting appropriate thresholds avoids alert fatigue.
   • Specify how you want to receive alerts—via email, Slack integration, or SMS. Utilizing multiple channels ensures you do not miss important warnings.
   • Test your alerts to confirm they work as intended before relying on them completely.
7. Share your dashboards
   • Click Share or Export on the dashboard page to collaborate with your team.
   • Generate a public or private sharing link to send to stakeholders or team members. Public links should be used cautiously due to security concerns.
   • Adjust sharing permissions to keep data secure while enabling collaboration. Use role-based access if supported, allowing different levels of visibility.
   • Consider exporting regular reports in PDF or CSV format for offline analysis or presentations.
8. Regularly review and update your metrics
   • Schedule weekly or monthly times to check your Baremetrics data for insights and flag any unusual changes quickly.
   • Use metrics trends to identify opportunities for product improvements or marketing strategies. For instance, a rising churn rate might indicate product issues or pricing misalignment.
   • Adjust your custom metrics and alerts as your product and customer base evolve. Keeping these up-to-date ensures you track what matters most over time.
   • Encourage cross-team review sessions where marketing, product, and finance teams analyze these metrics collaboratively to align strategies.

Common mistakes

• Connecting Baremetrics without having active subscription data in your Stripe or payment provider accounts. This leads to empty dashboards and no actionable insights. Make sure subscription transactions exist before setup.
• Not setting the correct timezone or currency during initial setup, resulting in inaccurate reports. For example, choosing a different timezone than your operational base can shift revenue recognition dates.
• Failing to authorize the payment provider fully, causing incomplete or missing data imports. Always confirm successful connection and data sync before relying on the data.
• Ignoring custom segments, which limits the ability to drill down into specific customer groups or products. Tailoring segments uncovers hidden trends and enhances decision making.
• Overlooking alert setup, missing important warning signs like increased churn or declining revenue. Alerts serve as an early-warning system that can save your business from surprises.
• Sharing dashboards without setting proper permissions, risking sensitive financial data exposure. Always review who has access and restrict it to relevant team members or stakeholders.
• Relying solely on default reports without customizing metrics tailored to your unique business needs. While defaults are helpful, your business model might require unique KPIs for effective monitoring.
• Not periodically reviewing and cleaning your data sources or outdated segments, which can cause misleading insights over time.
• Failing to cross-verify Baremetrics data with your payment provider’s reports initially to ensure full consistency.

Next steps

After setting up Baremetrics to track your product metrics, take time to familiarize yourself with advanced features such as cohort analysis and the forecasting tools. Cohort analysis helps reveal how different groups of customers behave over time, improving the understanding of retention and revenue growth patterns. Forecasting tools use historical data to predict future MRR or churn trends, enabling more accurate financial planning and resource allocation.

Integrate Baremetrics with other business tools like Slack or your CRM system to automate alerts and streamline communication with your team. This integration accelerates proactive management by delivering insights directly to your collaboration platforms, reducing the risk of overlooking vital information.

Regularly reviewing these metrics ensures that you stay ahead of trends and can make informed decisions quickly, which is critical in fast-moving subscription markets. Consider scheduling periodic training with your team to deepen their understanding of these tools and make data-driven culture a part of your organizational DNA.