How to Define User States for a SaaS Product

What a user state actually is

A user state is a label for where someone is in their relationship with your product, defined by what they've done, not by how long they've been a customer. Time-based lifecycle is a proxy for behavior. Behavior-based lifecycle is the real thing.

The standard states most SaaS products need

• New: created an account, hasn't reached the activation moment yet.
• Activated: completed the actions that predict long-term retention for your product.
• Engaged: actively using core features on a regular cadence.
• At-risk: showing signs of disengagement, reduced login frequency, key feature usage dropping.
• Churned: no longer active by any meaningful definition.

How to find your activation moment

Look at your retained users, the ones still paying 90 days after signup. What did they do in their first week that churned users didn't? That's your activation moment. It's almost always a specific action or combination of actions, not just "logged in."

Common mistakes

• Defining too many states. Six to eight is the maximum before logic becomes unmanageable.
• Using time as the primary signal instead of behavior.
• Not defining transition criteria clearly enough for engineering to implement the tracking.

What to do once you have them

The states themselves aren't the product. They're the input. Once defined, each state maps to a set of communications: what to say, through which channel, and what action you're trying to drive. That's where Customer.io comes in.