Subscription Unit Economics Workbook

Subscription businesses are usually judged on one MRR number, while the questions that decide survival are how much revenue leaks each month, what a customer costs to win and whether cohorts stay. Billing exports do not answer those. This workbook does it from a plain customer list.

What is inside

• Settings: first month of data, months of data (up to 24), gross margin, the averaging window and your plan list.
• Customers: one row per customer (up to 600) with start date and MRR at start. Add one change date and MRR after change for an upgrade or downgrade, and an end date for a churned customer.
• Spend: sales and marketing spend by month, which drives CAC.
• MRR: the monthly waterfall of opening, new, expansion, contraction, churn and closing MRR, with logo churn, revenue churn and net MRR retention.
• Cohorts: retention by start month, for logos and for revenue.
• Segments: which plans carry the revenue and the churn. Dashboard (four native charts) and Checks.
• Reconciliation: the waterfall against a recomputation from customer rows, the cohort tables against the waterfall and the plan table against total MRR.

How it is deeper than the KPI Dashboard Workbook for UAE Business Owners: that one tracks KPIs you type in. This one derives the subscription KPIs from customer-level rows, so every number can be traced back to who started, changed and left.

Facts and settings: MRR is the monthly equivalent you enter, in AED excluding VAT. LTV uses gross margin you set divided by the average monthly logo churn over the window, so a short history gives an estimate, not a guarantee.

What it is NOT: it is a calculation tool, not accounting, tax or legal advice. It is not connected to your bank or accounting system, it is not an FTA-approved system and it is not an e-invoicing tool (e-invoicing is on the Zeyto roadmap only). Where a rule matters it is a setting you enter, with a note to confirm it with the FTA, your accountant or your auditor.

Two workbooks: an EXAMPLE copy filled with invented data so you can see every sheet working, and a BLANK copy with the same formulas ready for your own data. Formulas only: no macros, no volatile functions, no add-ins. Input cells are coloured, formula sheets are protected without a password, and a Checks sheet turns green only when every list ties out.

How it was checked: recalculated with an independent Python formula engine and 2,488 outputs (monthly waterfall, churn, retention, CAC, LTV, payback, cohort tables and plan table for 180 invented customers over 24 months) were compared with a separate Python model, with no difference. There is no Excel or LibreOffice on the build machine, so it was not opened in them and the charts were not viewed on screen.

Limits: one change event per customer, no annual prepayments, usage fees, discounts, refunds or taxes. Customers who joined before the window count as the opening base and are left out of cohort averages.