Dissectly — AI Business Autopsy

Acme CorpApr 1, 2026 – Apr 30, 2026 vs Mar 1, 2026 – Mar 31, 2026

Critical

AI Business Autopsy

Acme Corp lost $13,200 in MRR this month — a 21.5% collapse driven by three simultaneous failures: a paid search bid change that tripled CAC, a $29 plan with a broken onboarding flow churning at 14%, and 41 failed payments generating zero recovery. Without intervention in the next 30 days, MRR falls below the $40k breakeven threshold.

↑ Churn spike↑ CAC spike⚠ Payment gap

MRR

$48,200

↓ 21.5% vs last period

Churn rate

8.2%

↓ 4.1% vs last period

New customers

↓ 64.4% vs last period

LTV : CAC

1.4×

✗ Below 3× min

Revenue Trend

MRR, new revenue and churn over time

MRR

New

Churned

Customer Flow

Acquisition vs churn by month

New: 31

Churned: 94

Payment Recovery

Failed invoices and recovery rate

Recovery rate0%

0%Industry avg 60–70%100%

Failed invoices

Amount at risk

$4,100

Recovered

MRR Breakdown

This period's revenue components

New MRR

$899

1.5% of prior MRR

Churned MRR

$5,035

8.2% of prior MRR

Expansion

0.0% of prior MRR

Root CausesRanked by revenue impact

Paid search CAC collapsed after Apr 3 bid change

A Google Ads bid strategy change on April 3rd sent cost-per-lead from $61 to $142 — a 133% spike. The campaign continued running at full budget for the entire month, burning $12,400 for only 31 conversions.

Evidence31 conversions on $12,400 spend. Previous month: 87 conversions on $7,800 spend. CAC up 59.6% MoM.

$29 plan churning at 14% — users never reach the aha moment

73% of churned accounts cancelled in week 2, before ever using the core workflow feature. The free tier feature gate is killing activation before users see the value.

Evidence94 customers churned vs 41 last month. Churned MRR: $9,100. Avg cancellation at day 11 of trial.

41 failed payments with zero recovery

Stripe flagged 41 failed charges totalling $4,100 last month. All are marked do_not_retry. No dunning sequence exists. Industry standard recovery rate is 60–70%.

Evidence41 failed invoices. $4,100 outstanding. $0 recovered. Missing: smart retries + dunning emails.

Priority ActionsNext 30 days

High2 actions

Pause Google Ads and revert bid strategy to manual CPC immediately

You are acquiring customers at a loss. Every day this runs burns cash.

Day 1Stop $400/day in wasted ad spend

Enable Stripe smart retries and set up a 3-email dunning sequence

This is free money sitting on the table. 60% recovery = $2,460/mo recurring.

Day 2–3+$2,460/mo recovered revenue

Med1 action

Move the core workflow feature to the free tier

Users churn before seeing the value. Remove the gate that is killing activation.

Week 2Target: halve $29 plan churn rate

Low1 action

Add an exit survey to the cancellation flow

You need ground truth on why people are leaving, not just the data signals.

Week 1Qualitative data to validate assumptions

90-Day Turnaround Plan

Days 1–30

Stop the bleeding

01Pause all Google Ads, audit bid strategies before restarting

02Enable Stripe Radar smart retries on all failed payments

03Deploy 3-email dunning sequence (day 1, day 5, day 10 after failure)

04Add exit survey to cancellation flow

05Unlock core workflow feature for all $29 plan users

Days 31–60

Stabilise

01Restart Google Ads with manual CPC, $50/day cap, weekly CAC review

02Analyse exit survey data — identify top 3 cancellation reasons

03A/B test onboarding flow with new users — measure week-2 activation rate

04Increase annual plan discount from 16% to 30% to improve LTV

Days 61–90

Grow again

01Review CAC by channel — kill anything above $100

02Launch a win-back campaign to churned users from the past 90 days

03If churn rate below 5%, begin expanding paid acquisition again

04Present board with turnaround metrics and next quarter plan

Silent KillersProblems you haven't noticed yet

⚠Warning

Organic traffic grew 18% this month but converted at 0.3% vs 2.1% last month

Something broke in your landing page or signup flow. The traffic is there — the conversion is gone. This will compound silently while you focus on the ad spend problem.

⚠Warning

Annual plan discount is 16% — well below the 25–40% industry norm

You are losing annual conversions to competitors with better lock-in economics. Every monthly customer who churns is one you could have locked in for 12 months.