What Is Average Revenue Per Account?
Average revenue per account is the mean recurring revenue generated across all active accounts in a given period, and it tells SaaS and subscription businesses whether their pricing and mix are trending toward larger or smaller customers over time. Most teams calculate it from a billing export that needs cleanup before the metric is reliable.
See the exact formula, which billing export columns to use, and how to segment it by plan type and cohort to identify mix shift.
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Upload your spreadsheet.xlsx .xls .csv — free to try, no accountWhat this export contains
| account_id |
| plan_type |
| mrr |
| arr |
| contract_start_date |
| renewal_date |
| seats |
| expansion_arr |
| churned_flag |
| billing_period |
What usually goes wrong with it
Churned accounts included in the denominator
If churned_flag accounts are not filtered out before dividing total MRR by account count, the metric is diluted by zero-revenue rows and understates the true average.
DataMimi Datamimi filters churned_flag accounts before dividing so only active accounts with positive MRR contribute to the denominator.
Multi-seat accounts counted once or many times
Some billing exports create one row per seat rather than one row per account — summing MRR and dividing by row count produces a per-seat figure rather than a per-account figure.
DataMimi It deduplicates multi-seat exports to one row per account_id before summing MRR, ensuring the metric reflects per-account rather than per-seat revenue.
Expansion revenue booked mid-period distorts the average
Accounts that expanded mid-period have expansion_arr added to their row, but the metric should reflect beginning-of-period ARR for accurate trend comparison across periods.
DataMimi It calculates the metric at beginning-of-period ARR by using contract_start_date and renewal_date to exclude mid-period expansions from the base.
Free trial accounts inflate the denominator
Trial accounts with zero MRR appear in the export and, if not filtered, increase the account count while contributing nothing to the numerator.
DataMimi It removes zero-MRR trial accounts from the calculation automatically when plan_type indicates a free or trial tier.
Common questions
What is average revenue per account?
Average revenue per account (ARPA) is total MRR or ARR divided by the number of active paying accounts in a period, measuring the average contract value across the customer base.
How is ARPA different from ARPU?
ARPA measures revenue per account (company or contract); ARPU measures revenue per user — for multi-seat products, one account may have many users, so the two metrics can differ significantly.
How do I calculate ARPA in a spreadsheet?
Filter to active accounts with positive MRR; sum the mrr column; divide by the count of unique account_id values; the result is your monthly ARPA.
What does a declining ARPA indicate?
Declining ARPA usually signals customer mix shift toward smaller accounts, discounting pressure, or plan downgrades — segmenting by plan_type shows which tier is driving the change.
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