The Edge: One Screen for SaaS Health

Churn rarely announces itself; it shows up first in falling logins, shorter sessions, or stalled upgrades. By the time cancellations surface in revenue, the damage is already done.

To demonstrate how SaaS teams could anticipate these signals, the Cloud Intelligence Data Team built a Retention Pulse demo dashboard in Grafana. Unlike a live production dashboard, it runs entirely on synthetic data that mimics a fictitious AI chat platform. The demo simulates logins, sign-ups, sessions, plan upgrades, and payments showing what real-time churn monitoring might look like.

How we built the synthetic data pipeline

To demonstrate real-time SaaS retention monitoring without exposing production data, we built a synthetic data generator that mimics a live AI chat platform. The pipeline mirrors production SaaS analytics systems through four distinct stages:

a) Event Generation

We simulate two continuous event streams: user activity (sign-ups, logins, logouts, checkouts) and transactions (subscriptions, payments, refunds). Our generator runs via Docker Compose at configurable rates, writing events in real-time to mimic production streams from services.

b) Data Processing

Raw events undergo sessionization; pairing login/logout events to calculate engagement duration and revenue normalization, where transactions are aggregated into Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) by plan tier, excluding failures and refunds.

c) Storage Layer

SQLite databases with Write-Ahead Logging store the processed data. We use compound indexes on (user_uuid, timestamp) for fast time-range queries and maintain pre-aggregated rollup tables (DAU, WAU, MAU) that update on each commit, keeping dashboard queries under 200ms.

d) Visualization

Grafana connects directly to SQLite data source. Dashboards auto-provision on startup and refresh every 5-30 seconds, showing new events within seconds of generation, delivering the real-time experience production teams expect.

Figure 1: Mermaid Diagram to illustrate synthetic data Pipeline for fictitious Saas AI company.

Why Real-Time Retention Intelligence Matters

Chat users churn fast when sessions feel shallow, onboarding is unclear, or upgrades don’t deliver value. Traditional reporting cycles are too slow by the time monthly churn reports come in, opportunities to intervene are gone.

Real-time dashboards in Grafana change that dynamic. They give product, growth, and finance teams the same shared view, refreshed continuously. With our Retention Pulse dashboard, we can:

• Spot churn early: DAU, WAU, MAU highlight slipping activity before cancellations.

• Validate acquisition: See whether marketing is delivering sustainable sign-ups.

• Measure stickiness: Session histograms show whether users stay for one question or full conversations.

• Protect revenue: MRR splits show whether growth is balanced across Pro, Team, and Enterprise tiers.

Instead of backward-looking metrics, the dashboard keeps every team aligned on what’s happening right now.

Engagement Scan: Where Users Are Active

The main view was to show scale and direction of engagement at a glance:

• Active Users (DAU, WAU, MAU): Three stat cards with percentage changes reveal whether daily, weekly, and monthly usage is rising or falling.

• New Acquisitions: Stat cards and a time-series area chart show whether sign-ups are accelerating or plateauing.

• Top Countries: A horizontal bar chart ranks the strongest markets for our chatbot.

These panels are side by side, so teams can see both absolute usage and momentum. A spike in new sign-ups without matching DAU suggests retention risk; rising DAU with flat sign-ups suggests existing customers are deepening usage.

Drilling Down: Session Quality

Beyond headline activity, engagement depth matters. The dashboard surfaces conversation quality through session analytics:

• Session Duration: A histogram shows how long users stay per session. Short spikes indicate onboarding friction or poor first experiences, while longer tails reflect stickiness and higher satisfaction.

• Interpretation: If most sessions end within seconds, it’s a signal to revisit onboarding or chat response quality. Consistently long sessions suggest users find the product valuable enough to engage deeply.

Session metrics give product teams direct feedback on whether the chatbot experience is delivering value in real time.

Drilling Down: Revenue Flow

Engagement alone isn’t enough ; revenue metrics confirm financial health. The dashboard highlights predictable income and plan performance:

• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): A stat card displays the overall figure for the current month, giving teams a quick view of predictable revenue.

• Plan Breakdown: A stacked bar chart splits MRR across Pro, Team, and Enterprise tiers, showing which plans contribute most and where the business may be overexposed.

Revenue panels give finance and leadership a real-time snapshot of growth trajectory and plan dependency.

Drilling Down: Conversion Flow

Alongside revenue, the dashboard visualizes user progression through the subscription funnel:

• Conversion Funnel: Using Grafana’s Sankey plugin, we mapped the journey from Free → Trial → Paid, then split paying users across Pro, Team, and Enterprise plans.

• Insights: Large drop-offs highlight friction in onboarding or upgrade paths, while balanced distribution across plans signals healthy adoption across customer segments.

The conversion view ties marketing and product strategy to financial performance, showing not just how many users pay, but how they arrive there.

The Power of Cloud Intelligence Analytics

At Cloud Intelligence, we don’t just build dashboards ; we empower SaaS companies with real-time intelligence that drives sustainable growth. Our Retention Pulse demo is only a glimpse of what’s possible when powerful analytics meet SaaS strategy. By bringing together user engagement, revenue flow, and conversion journeys on one screen, we show how data can become your most strategic asset.

What sets Cloud Intelligence apart is our ability to tailor analytics to your business, not the other way around. We integrate directly with your live data streams, apply churn models refined for your customer base, and deliver Grafana visualizations that turn complex signals into clear, actionable insights. The result? Teams that are no longer reacting to churn, but predicting and preventing it before it impacts revenue.

From validating acquisition campaigns to protecting recurring revenue, Cloud Intelligence transforms fragmented data into a unified source of truth. We give every team, product, growth, and finance the clarity and foresight to make confident, data-driven decisions that accelerate success.

Ready to stay ahead of churn? Partner with and we’ll get your dashboard live, fast tailored to fit the way your SaaS runs Want a dashboard that matches your product, data, and growth goals? Get in touch with Cloud Intelligence, and we’ll design a retention dashboard tailored for your SaaS helping your team spot churn before it spikes.