Step 2: Track Unit Economics Early

Calculate how much it costs to serve one customer, transaction, or user. This simple metric helps you identify whether you’re growing sustainably or just scaling losses and gives you a baseline for pricing, cost control, and future fundraising.

Why This Matters

Your startup might be growing fast but are you making or losing money with each new customer?
Poor unit economics are a hidden threat in early-stage startups. Founders who track cost per user early can fix leaks in pricing, support, or infrastructure before they become scale-breaking problems.
You don’t want to wait until Series A diligence to find out your top-line growth is hiding bottom-line risk.

Key Activities

Define your unit (e.g., one user, customer, transaction)
Add up variable costs to serve one unit: hosting, support, fulfillment, etc.
Compare to current pricing/revenue per unit
Identify red flags (e.g., high support burden, infrastructure creep)
Monitor this metric monthly and before major pricing or scaling decisions

Common Mistakes

Assuming growth means profitability
Ignoring hidden costs like onboarding time or custom support
Waiting until Series A diligence to evaluate unit economics
Using blended averages that hide unprofitable segments
Not reviewing this as part of hiring or GTM planning

Signals You're Doing It Right

You can name your cost per user/unit offhand
Pricing decisions are informed by unit economics
You’ve flagged one or more cost drivers and reduced them
Support, infra, and delivery costs are tracked per customer type
You can compare margin by user segment or product feature

Red Flags

You’re scaling user growth without knowing service cost
Infra costs rise with every new group of users, customers or product iterations but no one's investigating
Pricing is based on competitors, not your actual costs
“Big” customers are profitable only because of subsidies or founder involvement
You can't separate variable and fixed costs when asked

Who Should Own This

Founder, Product/Ops Lead, reviewed with a finance advisor or fractional CFO