Running a SaaS and watching users disappear after their trial or first month? Here’s what most founders get wrong: they think it’s a pricing problem. It’s not. It’s a proof-of-value problem.
SaaS user retention tactics
Your team already knows what might help:
- Better onboarding
- A knowledge base / resources section
- Video tutorials
- A product that does not suck
- Others who share positive reviews
- Mentions by important channels and opinion leaders in the space
But here’s where everyone gets stuck: How do you prove it’s worth the effort?
We focus on month-one retention. Why? Because that’s where the bleeding happens.
Here’s our hypothesis: People who visit the knowledge base in their first 7 days retain better than those who don’t.
Simple, right? Now let’s dive deeper into the mechanics of WHY and HOW to test this to make the case.
SaaS retention tactics business case model – simplified template
Here’s what the numbers actually look like when you compare users who engage with your knowledge base versus those who don’t:
| Metric | KB Visitors (First 7 Days) | Non-Visitors | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 Retention Rate | 78% | 20% | +58 pp |
| Retained Users (per 1M) | 780,000 | 200,000 | +580,000 |
| Additional MRR (at 100 ARPU/m) | 78,000,000 | 20,000,000 | +58,000,000 |
| Annual Recurring Revenue | 936,000,000 | 240,000,000 | +696,000,000 |
What This Table Tells You
That’s a 58 percentage point gap in retention. In practical terms:
If you onboard 1,000,000 users per month with a 100 ARPU:
- Without KB engagement: only 200,000 users stick around (20%)
- With KB engagement: 780,000 users stick around (78%)
That’s 580,000 more retained users each month, generating an extra 58M in MRR.
Scale that over a year? 696M in additional revenue from helping users find value faster.
How to Measure Knowledge Base Impact on Retention
The technical setup is dead simple:
- Track the behavior: Fire a
kb_viewevent whenever a logged-in user opens an article - Create cohorts: Segment users who viewed KB content vs. didn’t in their first 7 days
- Measure retention: Compare retention rates after month one
- Calculate impact: Multiply the retention difference by your ARPU and user volume
That’s it. Clean. Quantifiable. Actionable.
Why Knowledge Base Access Might Drives SaaS Retention
This isn’t a “content project.”
It’s not even a “retention initiative.”
It’s a customer experience project disguised as a knowledge base.
When users can self-serve answers during their critical first week, they:
- Experience value faster (time-to-value decreases)
- Build confidence in the product (reduce uncertainty)
- Overcome obstacles independently (reduce friction)
- Feel empowered rather than stuck (improve sentiment)
The Reframe That Changes Everything
Stop calling these things “activation” or “retention.”
Start calling them what they really are: value experienced / happy users.
That one shift changes:
- How you build features
- How you measure success
- How your team thinks about growth
My Personal Approach to Improving User Experience
This is the mindset I’ve been moving toward: Go all in on placing yourself in the end user’s shoes. At every single step, ask yourself:
“What’s holding me back right now? And how would I solve that?”
Don’t blindly follow what analytics, dashboards, your boss, complex behavior trackers and what else tell you. Not what the roadmap says.
What would YOU need to experience value?
How to implement data driven and experiment based SaaS retention strategies
Here’s your action plan:
- Identify your drop-off point: Where do most users churn? (Trial-to-paid? Month 1-2?)
- Form a hypothesis: What resource might help them succeed?
- Instrument tracking: Set up events to measure engagement with that resource
- Create cohorts: Compare users who engage vs. don’t in their first week
- Measure and iterate: Calculate the retention impact and ROI
Scaling This Approach: From 1,000 to 1,000,000 Users
The beauty of this framework? It scales linearly:
- 1,000 users/month: +58K MRR, 696K ARR
- 10,000 users/month: +580K MRR, 6.96M ARR
- 100,000 users/month: +5.8M MRR, 69.6M ARR
- 1,000,000 users/month: +58M MRR, 696M ARR
The percentage impact stays consistent. The dollar impact grows with your user base.
What strategies are you using to help users experience value faster and keep them coming back?
👋🏻 I’m Bas, and I help fintech and SaaS businesses improve their user acquisition, activation and retention game by leveraging data and experiments to improve user experience.
✅ Follow me for growth insights, practical tips, and (AI) software reviews – connect with me here on LinkedIn.
