Newsletter · 14 min read

Rethinking SaaS metrics for AI

Kyle Poyar · Growth Unhinged Paid Advanced

Names precisely which classic metrics stop working when revenue is consumption based and inference costs eat gross margin, then proposes replacements. The free preview alone reframes the problem.

  • Poyar's argument: ARR is becoming untrustworthy for AI-native companies, and DAU/MAU break when the product runs as digital labour or inside another product via MCP.
  • He does not trust LTV for any AI product right now, given experimentation budgets and the shipping pace of Anthropic and OpenAI.
  • Mixed monetisation splits revenue into high-margin platform and low-margin tokens, so a single gross margin line hides the business.
Open on growthunhinged.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. Do the classic SaaS metrics still work if we are an AI native company?

Read with it

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  2. Survey data from over eight hundred private companies, with an efficient growth matrix that plots CAC payback against NRR so... Growth Unhinged Report · 20 min read What's Really Going on in Software: The 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report Kyle Poyar
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