The Zombie MRR Detector

Detects customers who are still paying but no longer engaging with the product. Zombie MRR looks stable on the P&L but disappears one invoice at a time. Sellers never flag it — it makes their number look good. For a buyer, the gap between paid and active is one of the highest-signal leading indicators of post-close churn.

Part of the ChurnLens 5-Risk Buyer-Side Method →

What it is

Detects customers who are still paying but no longer engaging with the product. Zombie MRR looks stable on the P&L but disappears one invoice at a time. Sellers never flag it — it makes their number look good. For a buyer, the gap between paid and active is one of the highest-signal leading indicators of post-close churn.

What it looks for in the data

The detector joins billing records against activity signals to find accounts that are paid-current but inactive over a meaningful window. The output is the total zombie MRR, the trend (growing or shrinking), and the specific accounts contributing to it.

Buyer-side signal: this lens surfaces a risk that sellers rarely volunteer because it makes their headline number look worse. In a SaaS acquisition, the gap between what this lens finds and what the CIM discloses is directly negotiation-relevant.

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80%
Overpay for Churn
4.2×
Real vs Reported
$340K
Avg Overpayment
23
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