Identify Key Profit Factors for $54 Premium Plan
Overview
This question evaluates a data scientist's ability to model SaaS unit economics by identifying revenue drivers, conversion and churn rates, customer acquisition cost, proration effects, and variable per-user costs that determine monthly profitability.
Capital One
Jul 12, 2025, 6:59 PM
Data Scientist
Onsite
Analytics & Experimentation
51
0
Scenario
A data scientist is asked to evaluate the monthly profitability of a $54-per-month premium SaaS plan. The company operates a freemium model (free tier + premium) and acquires new premium users each month.
Task
- Identify and list the key factors that determine monthly profit for the $54 premium plan.
- Formulate an equation for expected monthly profit in terms of these factors.
- Explicitly call out the ratios/data points needed to compute profit.
- Given any missing ratio provided by the interviewer (e.g., percent of free users converting to premium), show the full calculation to arrive at profit and interpret the result.
Assumptions (state or adjust as needed)
- Time unit is a calendar month.
- New premium signups occur uniformly through the month; use a proration factor φ (e.g., 0.5) to reflect partial-month revenue/cost for new signups.
- CAC is expensed in the month it occurs (alternatively, note how to amortize if requested).
- Variable cost per premium user includes hosting, support, and payment processing fees.
Solution
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