The average price a new customer pays when they first convert to a paid subscription — new business MRR divided by the number of new customers acquired in the same period.
ASP = new business MRR ÷ new customers acquired in the same period
In June you sign 20 new customers: 12 on the £29/mo Starter plan, 6 on the £99/mo Growth plan, and 2 on an annual plan billed at £2,388/yr (£199/mo normalised).
(12 × £29) + (6 × £99) + (2 × £199) = £348 + £594 + £398 = £1,340 new business MRR. £1,340 ÷ 20 = £67/month ASP
ASP measures the first purchase only. Take the new business MRR added in a period and divide it by the number of customers who subscribed for the first time in that period. Renewals, upgrades and expansion revenue are all excluded, and that narrow scope is the point: ASP is a clean read on your go-to-market, telling you what a brand-new customer is worth on day one, before retention and expansion take over the story.
The most common mistake is conflating ASP with ARPU or ARPA. Averaging across your whole customer base pulls in expansion revenue from long-standing accounts, which inflates the number and hides new deals closing at heavier and heavier discounts. ASP is a new-business metric; ARPA is a whole-base metric. Mixing them makes both useless.
Two more calculation traps. Always use the achieved price after discounts, not the list price, and normalise annual plans to their monthly equivalent before dividing. A £2,388 annual deal contributes £199 of new business MRR — count it at £2,388 and a couple of annual signups will make your ASP look like it tripled in a month.
ASP anchors which acquisition motion you can afford. A sub-£100/month ASP generally only supports self-serve and product-led growth; a sales-assisted motion needs an ASP high enough that CAC pays back in a sane window. And a single figure means little on its own: cut ASP by channel, plan and geography, and watch the trend. Falling ASP is an early warning of discount creep or a downmarket mix shift; rising ASP validates pricing and positioning.
ASP sets the ceiling on how you can afford to acquire customers. It tells you whether a paid channel, an outbound rep, or only self-serve can pay for itself, it feeds directly into new-MRR forecasts (expected deals × ASP), and its trend is the earliest warning of discount creep — often visible quarters before the damage shows up in revenue.
There is no universal ASP benchmark — it varies enormously by segment and sales motion. The closest widely-cited reference is SaaS Capital's 2025 survey of private B2B SaaS companies, which puts median annual contract value at $26,265 (roughly $2,190/month), up from $22,357 the year before. Self-serve SaaS typically sits far below this; enterprise far above.
Divide the new business MRR added in a period by the number of customers who subscribed for the first time in that period. Only first purchases count — exclude renewals, upgrades and expansion — and use the achieved price after discounts, with annual plans normalised to monthly.
ASP only considers the first purchase by new customers, so it reflects your current go-to-market. ARPU averages revenue across your entire active base, including renewals and expansion. A business can have rising ARPU from expansion while its ASP on new deals is quietly falling.
There is no universal number — ASP is only good relative to your acquisition cost and sales motion. SaaS Capital's 2025 survey puts median annual contract value for private B2B SaaS at $26,265, but self-serve products thrive far below that. What matters is that ASP comfortably supports your CAC payback.
ASP should reflect what customers actually pay, so use net revenue after discounts, not list price. Annual and multi-year plans are normalised to their monthly equivalent first — a £2,388 annual plan contributes £199/mo to the calculation, not £2,388.
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