According to Statista, in 2025, there were over 12,500 fintech companies in North America. This can give you a rough idea of how many fintech apps may be out there, and it can be hard to sift through.
The good news is that there are certain metrics that venture capitalists (VCs) use to judge how sticky fintech apps are, and this can help you determine whether an app is worth your time. Here are nine metrics VCs use.
Day-30 retention by cohort
Day-30 retention by cohort can be one of the best ways to determine whether an app has durable engagement. VCs look past the overall retention percentage, and instead, they hone in on comparing users acquired in the same month or quarter. Then, they see how many are still active 30 days later.
A good benchmark can be 30%+ day-30 retention. Do note that appropriate levels may vary significantly by the product and usage frequency. For example, a copy trading app may have retention patterns that are naturally different from budgeting tools or payment apps.
VCs ask:
- How would you define “active?”
- How are cohorts segmented? (e.g., by acquisition channel, geography, or product)
- How has day-30 retention changed over the past 12 months?
Time-to-first-funded trade
Time-to-first-funded trade means how long it takes for someone to create an account and then make their first funded investment or trade. In general, the shorter this period, the more effectively the app’s converting people.
For an investing platform, a target may be under seven days. Fast activation can indicate a very effective onboarding funnel. Make sure to evaluate the metric by acquisition source and user segment; don’t just rely on a single average.
VCs ask:
- What percentage of newly registered users fund their accounts within seven days?
- Where do users drop out?
- How much of first funding comes from promotional incentives?
- Does faster funding correlate with better long-term retention?
Net deposits ratio
Looking at the net deposits ratio can help you filter out superficial account activity. Here, you’ll compare net new money entering the platform with the existing asset base or another clearly defined denominator.
Sustained positive net deposits are a good sign, as this means that customers are increasing their financial commitment. On the other hand, if there are repeated withdrawals, then there may be weak trust or poor investment performance.
VCs ask:
- What is the ratio of gross deposits to withdrawals?
- How much growth comes from existing customers vs. new accounts?
- Are deposits concentrated among a small number of wealthy users?
- How much cash leaves within 30, 60, 90, or 180 days?
LTV-to-CAC
Customer lifetime value (LTV) and customer acquisition cost (CAC) are key factors to compare against one another, as they can tell you whether customer growth can be economically sustainable. When calculating LTV-to-CAC for fintech businesses, a ratio of 3:1 or better can be a good sign.
Do note that a very high ratio can actually be a negative thing. This may be an indicator of underinvestment in growth, or they may be using conservative assumptions for LTV.
VCs ask:
- How is LTV calculated?
- Does it include contribution margin instead of revenue alone?
- What retention assumptions underpin it?
- What is CAC by channel?
- How long does CAC take to pay back?
Regulatory complaints per 10k users
This metric is useful because it provides a normalised way to look at customer-protection problems as a fintech scales. While a benchmark of a low single-digit complaint rate per 10,000 users is good, don’t use it as a straight pass/fail test. It’s more important to evaluate the direction of travel and the severity of complaints.
VCs ask:
- What counts as a complaint?
- Which complaints are escalated to regulators?
- What percentage involves unauthorised transactions, withdrawals, suitability, disclosures, or account restrictions?
- How quickly are complaints resolved?
- Are complaint rates materially higher for particular products or customer cohorts?
Feature-level stickiness
As the name suggests, feature-level stickiness measures how frequently customers return to specific features. It’s common to examine weekly active users divided by monthly active users, with 40%+ WAU/MAU serving as a strong benchmark. This can be a sign of relatively strong recurring engagement for a particular feature.
VCs ask:
- Which three features have the highest repeat usage?
- What percentage of retained users use each one?
- Does adoption of a particular feature improve day-30 or day-90 retention?
- Which features are used once and abandoned?
Risk-control adoption
This metric examines whether customers actually use protective mechanisms. High adoption shows that users trust and understand the platform’s controls, and this may be a number of 70% or higher. What’s important to know is that not every control should be mandatory or relevant to every customer.
VCs ask:
- Which controls are optional vs. required?
- What percentage of active users enable them?
- Does adoption vary by age, geography, or account size?
- Have fraud losses changed as adoption increased?
- Are users disabling controls after activation?
Revenue mix quality
Revenue mix quality checks out where fintech revenue actually comes from and whether it’s sustainable. In general, VCs favour diversified, recurring, or economically defensible revenue streams. They treat unusually rapid growth from one volatile source cautiously, as it’s likely not sustainable.
Like with the other metrics, there’s no universal percentage benchmark. However, if more than 50-60% of revenue comes from a single highly cyclical, regulatory-sensitive, or promotional source, this should be a red flag.
VCs ask:
- What percentage of revenue comes from recurring subscriptions?
- How much depends on interest rates?
- How much comes from trading activity?
- What would revenue look like under lower rates or weaker markets?
- Are interchange economics changing?
Concentration of active traders
The concentration of active traders is beneficial because while an app can have millions of users, the revenue may actually be coming from a relatively small group of highly active traders. Therefore, it’s important to look at the percentage of trading volume generated by the top 1%, 5%, and 10% of active traders.
If more than 50% of trading activity comes from the top 10%, then you may need to investigate further.
VCs ask:
- What percentage of active users generate most revenue?
- How stable are the highest-value traders?
- What happens to revenue if the top 1% leave?
- Are high-frequency users receiving incentives unavailable to ordinary customers?
Find fintech apps that are sustainable
There are many fintech apps out there, so it’s essential that you find ones that are sustainable and worth your money. By relying on these metrics that VCs use, you’ll have a more efficient and fruitful search.
Check out more of our pages now to find additional informative articles.
