Guides, API references, and best practices for tracking MRR, churn, and customer health with Northstar Analytics.
Getting Started
Set up your workspace and invite your team
4 articles
Analytics & Metrics
Understand MRR, churn, cohorts, and funnels
Billing & Plans
Manage subscriptions, invoices, and payment methods
API & Webhooks
Programmatic access and real-time events
Integrations
Connect Northstar to your stack
Security & Compliance
How we protect your data
Quickstart: Ship in 5 minutes
Create your first dashboard, connect a data source, and invite a teammate.
Workspace setup checklist
Configure your workspace name, logo, default plan, and timezone.
Inviting teammates and roles
Owner, admin, member, viewer — what each role can do.
Building your first dashboard
How to add KPI cards, charts, and filters to a new dashboard.
MRR vs. ARR vs. GAAP revenue
The three revenue metrics SaaS teams track, and when to use each.
Churn vs. contraction: what's the difference?
Logo churn, revenue churn, and contraction — and which one matters most.
Reading cohort retention charts
How to interpret the cohort chart and spot retention problems early.
Mapping your signup funnel
Track visits → signups → activations → trials → paid conversions.
Plan tiers and limits explained
Free, Starter, Pro, Scale, Enterprise — what each tier includes.
How proration works on upgrade
When you upgrade mid-cycle, we charge the difference prorated by day.
Downloading invoices as PDF
Every invoice is downloadable as a PDF with your company's branding.
Migrating from Stripe Billing
Import your customers, subscriptions, and invoices from Stripe.
Creating and rotating API keys
Live vs. test keys, scopes, and how to rotate without downtime.
Rate limits and quotas
Per-plan rate limits, the 429 backoff protocol, and how to request increases.
Webhook signature verification
Verify webhook payloads with HMAC-SHA256 to prevent spoofing.
Pagination and cursor conventions
All list endpoints use cursor-based pagination. Here's how to use it.
Stripe integration guide
Sync customers, subscriptions, and invoices bi-directionally with Stripe.
Slack alerts and digests
Get MRR milestones, churn alerts, and weekly digests in Slack.
Segment event tracking
Forward product events from Segment to enrich customer profiles.
SSO with Okta (SAML)
Configure SAML SSO with Okta for Enterprise plans.
SOC 2 Type II report
Our annual SOC 2 audit covers security, availability, and confidentiality.
Data residency options
Choose US, EU, or APAC regions for data storage. Available on Scale+.
Reading the audit log
Every privileged action is logged. Here's how to export and review it.
HIPAA compliance for Healthtech
Sign a BAA and enable PHI mode for HIPAA-covered workloads.