Most MRR dashboards are built for teams. They have charts for each sales rep, cohort analysis, and integrations for five different tools you don't use. If you're a solo founder, that's overkill.
Here's what you actually need.
The minimum viable MRR setup
One number. Updated monthly. Visible somewhere.
That's it. The founders who obsess over dashboards from day one are usually avoiding the harder work: shipping and selling.
Start simple:
- Count active subscriptions — pull your subscriber list from your payment processor
- Normalize to monthly — divide annual plans by 12
- Subtract churned customers — anyone who cancelled since last month
- Write down the number — a notes app, a spreadsheet, a sticky note
You're done. You have an MRR dashboard.
When to add more
Most solo founders don't need more until $5K MRR. At that point, you'll want to track:
- Churn rate — what percentage of your MRR leaves each month
- Net new MRR — are you growing faster than you're losing
- Top plans — which pricing tier drives the most revenue
Still nothing that requires software. A monthly spreadsheet entry for each of these takes ten minutes.
The tool most indie hackers miss
Here's the thing no dashboard tells you: how you compare.
Knowing you're at $2K MRR means more when you can see that a founder two years ahead of you went from $2K to $10K in eight months. Or that the person who launched six months ago is already ahead of you.
That context is what MRR.fyi provides. Submit your MRR, get it on the public leaderboard, and suddenly your number has peers. You can see the trajectory of founders who started where you are. It's motivating in a way no private dashboard can replicate.
The dashboard you already have
Your payment processor (Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle) shows you MRR. It's not beautiful, but it's accurate.
Use it. Cross-reference it with your manual count once a month. Submit that number publicly.
The best MRR dashboard is the one you actually check. Keep it simple until complexity earns its place.