How to easily fake MRR while showing a true Stripe screenshot

I dislike the extreme focus in SaaS on MRR as if it's the only thing that matters.

We had a well-connected competitor enter our market. They said they hit $500k ARR in 2 weeks after fanfare launch.

I was impressed and disappointed that I'm growing so slowly. Even with a shitty product (and there's no way to make a not-shitty product in 2 weeks in our space of AI content tool for Linkedin) they got massive traction.

Then I thought they're lying.

Then I understood the simple trick that lets you be technically truthful while showing inflated Stripe MRR.

Here's how it works:

1. Make a big fanfare launch
2. Offer paid subscriptions without trial periods
3. Change your Stripe setting to "Count canceled subscriptions as churn at end of billing period" instead of immediately (which is the default)

What this setting does: By default, when someone cancels their subscription, Stripe immediately removes them from your MRR count. But if you change this setting, Stripe keeps counting them as active MRR until their paid period ends – even if they cancelled 5 minutes after signing up.

So the trick: Even if your product is so shitty that everyone cancels the same day they subscribe, Stripe counts them as active paying subscribers for the full 30 days.

Their case: $99/month × 420 paid subscriptions = $500k ARR

I believe they probably had 95% churn within 30 days, but until that month ended they could legitimately say they launched a $500k ARR product in 2 weeks.

The screenshot shows real numbers. The business reality tells a completely different story.

This is why context matters more than the metric itself. MRR without retention data is just a vanity number.