PostHog + Stripe: See How Product Usage Drives Revenue

Product-Led Growth Needs Product-Led Data

If you're running a product-led growth (PLG) strategy, your product is your sales team. Users sign up, try the product, and upgrade when they find enough value. The question every PLG founder asks is: which product behavior predicts revenue?

PostHog tracks what users do inside your product: feature usage, session frequency, funnel completion, retention curves. Stripe tracks what they pay: subscription starts, upgrades, downgrades, churn. But PostHog doesn't know about revenue, and Stripe doesn't know about product behavior.

The connection between the two is where PLG strategy lives.

What You'll Learn From This Overlay

Feature Usage vs Upgrade Rate

Track weekly active users of a specific feature in PostHog and overlay it with Stripe's weekly new subscription count. If a feature's usage strongly correlates with upgrades, you've found your activation trigger. That feature should be front and center in your onboarding flow.

Engagement Frequency vs Revenue

Plot PostHog's daily active users (DAU) or session count against Stripe MRR over time. A strong positive correlation confirms that engagement drives revenue. A weak correlation might mean you have a pricing problem - users love the product but aren't willing to pay for it.

Usage Drops Predict Churn

Overlay PostHog's weekly active user count with Stripe's churn rate (or cancellation count). If usage drops consistently precede cancellations by 2-3 weeks, you've found your churn early warning system. You can intervene with re-engagement campaigns before users cancel.

Power User Behavior and Expansion Revenue

Track PostHog events for advanced features or high-volume usage alongside Stripe upgrade events. This reveals which behaviors drive expansion revenue. If users who hit a specific usage threshold tend to upgrade, you can use that threshold to trigger upgrade prompts.

Setting Up PostHog

Via API

PostHog's API provides access to insights, trends, and event data. In TotalKPI:

1. Create an API data source
2. Set the endpoint to your PostHog instance's API (e.g., trends or insights endpoint)
3. Add your PostHog personal API key in the headers
4. Configure a JSONPath expression to extract the metric (DAU, feature usage count, etc.)
5. Set polling to daily

Via CSV

Export PostHog insight data as CSV. Most PostHog insights have an export option. Download the trend data you want to track and import it into TotalKPI.

Via Webhook (n8n or Zapier)

If you use PostHog's webhook destinations or pipe PostHog data through n8n/Zapier, you can push metrics directly to TotalKPI's inbound webhook endpoint. This gives you real-time data without polling.

Setting Up Stripe

Connect Stripe via API for live MRR, new subscription, or churn data. Or export historical data as CSV for the initial overlay.

Creating the Combined View

With both sources ready:

1. Create a combined view
2. Select your PostHog usage metric and your Stripe revenue metric
3. The overlay normalizes both to 0-100% scale automatically

The Pearson correlation coefficient appears immediately. A correlation above 0.5 between a product metric and revenue is strong signal. Below 0.3, the product behavior you're tracking probably doesn't drive revenue directly.

The PLG Diagnostic Framework

Run these four overlays to diagnose your PLG engine:

1. Activation Check

PostHog: New users who complete key action (first week) vs Stripe: New paying customers

Strong correlation = your activation flow works. Weak = users aren't finding value fast enough.

2. Engagement Check

PostHog: Weekly active users vs Stripe: MRR

Strong correlation = engagement drives revenue. Weak = pricing or monetization problem.

3. Retention Check

PostHog: Returning users (week over week) vs Stripe: Churn rate (inverted)

Strong correlation = retained users stay paying. Weak = payment and usage are disconnected.

4. Expansion Check

PostHog: Power user actions (advanced features, high volume) vs Stripe: Upgrade events

Strong correlation = clear expansion triggers exist. Weak = no natural upgrade path.

Timing Matters

Product usage metrics typically lead revenue metrics by 1-4 weeks in PLG businesses. When looking at the overlay, pay attention to:

• How long after a usage spike does revenue increase? This is your conversion cycle.
• How long before a churn event does usage decline? This is your intervention window.
• Do usage spikes from new features correlate with revenue spikes? This validates feature investment.

Get Started

Start a free trial and overlay your PostHog product data with Stripe revenue. See which product behaviors actually drive your business in minutes, not months of data analysis.

Or explore the demo to see combined charts in action.