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SaaS magic number
Your SaaS magic number (annualized new revenue over prior-quarter sales-and-marketing spend) with an efficiency band telling you whether to scale acquisition.
You receive: A reviewed magic-number calculator + the passing test report, run on your numbers.
Part of Choose Business Model, Build a Sales Engine
Example
A sample of what this play produces. Your result is generated for your inputs.
Breakdown
- New revenue in quarter
- 1800
- Annualized new revenue
- 7200
Inputs
- Revenue this q
- 4800
- Revenue prior q
- 3000
- Sm expense prior q
- 8000
Arithmetic recomputed against tasks.py's _magic_number_reference oracle, 2026-10-12: new revenue this quarter is 4800 minus 3000, or 1800; annualized (x4) that is 7200; divided by the prior quarter's 8000 of sales and marketing spend, the magic number is 0.9, in the efficient band (0.75 to 1.0 inclusive), so acquisition spend is paying back but sits below the 1.0 scale-acquisition line. All figures are illustrative: STUD is pre-revenue (a soft launch; paid runs open at launch), so the quarters model the illustrative launch scenario, where revenue is prepaid credit pack sales. Prior quarter, about $3,000 of pack sales: 40 activated buyers' first packs at the $42 average (a 60:25:10:5 mix across the $20 / $40 / $100 / $200 packs) is $1,680, plus about $1,320 of repeat packs from retained buyers spending about $25 a month. This quarter, about $4,800: the 25 retained buyers at about $25 a month plus a second signup cohort's first packs and repeat packs. The $8,000 spend is 200 launch signups at the illustrative $40 blended CAC from content-led acquisition. Both quarters use the same pack-sales basis.
Opens later
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Scope of the check
What's verified: STUD verifies the ARITHMETIC only: (revenue growth x4) over prior-quarter sales-and-marketing spend, banded on the 3-decimal rounded value (inefficient <0.5, caution <0.75, efficient 0.75 to 1.0 inclusive, above 1.0 = scale acquisition; note some practitioners, following Leckie's original, treat 0.75 as the scale point). Use the SAME revenue basis for both quarters (recurring revenue preferred); whether your revenue and spend figures are right is your judgment, not graded.