What are Active Paid Subscriptions?
Active Paid Subscriptions is a point-in-time count of all subscriptions in your Stripe account that are currently active and have a price above $0. It measures the size of your paying customer base — excluding free plans, trials without a paid component, and cancelled subscriptions.
This metric is the denominator in ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account) and a key input to CLV. When active subscriptions grow but MRR doesn’t keep pace, your average ticket size is shrinking. When subscriptions are flat but MRR rises, you’re expanding existing accounts.
The formula
| Variable | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Active subscriptions | Stripe subscriptions with status 'active' — not trialing, cancelled, paused, or past_due |
| Price > $0 | Excludes free-tier subscriptions (price = 0). Only plans with a positive recurring price are counted |
Worked example
Your Stripe account has 200 total subscriptions at the end of the month:
| Variable | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Active, paid plans | 142 subscriptions on paid plans ($29/mo, $99/mo, $249/mo) |
| Active, free plans | 25 subscriptions on the $0 free tier |
| Trialing | 18 subscriptions in a 14-day trial |
| Cancelled | 12 subscriptions cancelled (access expired) |
| Past due | 3 subscriptions with failed payments |
Active Paid Subscriptions = 142
Only the 142 active subscriptions with a price above $0 are counted. The 25 free-tier, 18 trialing, 12 cancelled, and 3 past-due subscriptions are excluded.
Why this matters
If your MRR is $20,000 and you have 142 active paid subscriptions, your ARPA is $140.85/month. If next month you add 15 new subscriptions but all on the $29 plan, ARPA drops to $131.69 even though MRR grew. Tracking both metrics together reveals whether growth is coming from volume or from higher-value customers.
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Track My SubscriptionsHow it’s computed
North Metric computes Active Paid Subscriptions as a point-in-time snapshot from your Stripe subscription data, taken during the daily sync.
| Variable | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Data source | Stripe /v1/subscriptions — all subscriptions with status 'active' |
| Price filter | plan.amount > 0 — excludes free-tier subscriptions where the recurring price is $0 |
| Snapshot timing | Point-in-time: counts subscriptions active at the moment of the daily snapshot, not a period aggregate |
What’s included
Any Stripe subscription with status activeand a plan amount greater than zero. This covers monthly, quarterly, and annual billing cycles — all normalized to a single count regardless of billing interval.
What’s excluded
Free-tier subscriptions ($0 price), trialing subscriptions (status trialing), cancelled subscriptions, past-due subscriptions, and paused subscriptions. Trial subscriptions are tracked separately via Trial-to-Paid.
Point-in-time vs period metrics
Active Paid Subscriptions is a point-in-time metric — it represents the count at the moment of the snapshot, not an average or sum over a period. This means it can change daily as new subscriptions activate and existing ones cancel. For period-based inflows, see New Paid Subscriptions.
Active Paid vs Total Subscriptions
Stripe’s total subscription count includes every subscription object ever created. Active Paid Subscriptions filters to the ones that matter for revenue.
| Active Paid Subscriptions | Total Subscriptions | |
|---|---|---|
| What it counts | Active subscriptions with price > $0 | Every subscription object in Stripe |
| Includes free plans | No | Yes |
| Includes trials | No — only post-conversion | Yes |
| Includes cancelled | No | Yes — including long-expired |
| Best for | Revenue metrics (ARPA, CLV), customer base size | Stripe dashboard reference, historical audit |
Active Paid is the denominator. When you divide MRR by total subscriptions (including free and cancelled), ARPA is artificially low and CLV is meaningless.
Total subscriptions include ghosts. A SaaS with 500 total Stripe subscriptions might have only 180 active paid ones. The other 320 are free-tier, cancelled, or trial remnants that never converted.
Common Active Paid Subscriptions mistakes
- Counting free-tier subscriptions. Including $0 plans inflates the count and deflates ARPA. A company with 200 paid and 100 free subscriptions that reports “300 customers” is overstating its paying base by 50%.
- Including past-due as active. Subscriptions in
past_duestatus aren’t generating revenue. Counting them inflates the base while MRR already excludes their contribution. - Confusing subscriptions with customers. One customer can have multiple subscriptions (separate products, add-ons, different billing entities). Active Paid Subscriptions counts subscription objects, not unique customers.
- Ignoring the free-to-paid funnel. If your free-tier count grows but Active Paid Subscriptions doesn’t, your conversion funnel has a leak. Track the ratio of free to paid over time.
- Not segmenting by plan. A flat active count hides mix shifts. If you add 20 subscriptions on a $29 plan and lose 5 on a $249 plan, the count grew but MRR dropped. Segment by plan tier to catch this.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an active paid subscription?
Any Stripe subscription with status “active” and a plan price greater than $0. This includes monthly, annual, and quarterly billing cycles. It excludes free plans, trials, cancelled subscriptions, and past-due subscriptions.
How is this different from “customers” in Stripe?
Stripe’s Customer object represents a person or company, while a Subscription is a billing relationship. One customer can have multiple subscriptions (e.g., separate products or billing entities). Active Paid Subscriptions counts subscription objects, so a single customer with two paid subscriptions counts as two.
Do annual subscriptions count the same as monthly?
Yes. Active Paid Subscriptions is a count, not a revenue metric. A $29/month subscription and a $3,000/year subscription each count as one. For revenue weighting, use MRR or ARPA.
What happens when a subscription is paused?
Paused subscriptions are not active — they’re excluded from the count. When a customer pauses their subscription in Stripe, it drops out of Active Paid Subscriptions until they resume. This is the correct behavior: paused subscriptions aren’t generating revenue.
Should I track Active Paid Subscriptions or MRR?
Both. Active Paid Subscriptions tells you the size of your customer base. MRR tells you the revenue they generate. Together they give you ARPA, which reveals whether you’re growing through volume (more customers) or value (higher-paying customers). The healthiest SaaS companies grow both.
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