Chartsy Growth Goals & Challenges: Turn Your MRR Target Into a Habit

Most founders can tell you their goal for the year - "$10k MRR by December," "500 subscribers by Q3." Far fewer can tell you whether last week actually moved them closer to it. A goal without a tracking loop is just a number you wrote down once. Chartsy's Goals and Challenges features exist to close that loop.

What Is Goal Tracking in Chartsy?

Chartsy lets you set a growth goal - typically an MRR target, a subscriber target, or both - and tracks live progress toward it using your connected Stripe or Paddle data. Instead of a static number in a spreadsheet you update once a month (if that), your goal updates in real time as new revenue and subscribers come in, so "how am I doing against my goal" is always a current answer, not a stale guess.

In practice: a goal you check once a quarter barely functions as a goal at all - by the time you notice you're behind, there's little runway left to course-correct. A goal you can check in seconds, any day, is one you can actually steer toward.

What Challenges Add on Top

Challenges layer a gamified structure on top of goal tracking - built for founders who find a bare number less motivating than visible progress with some structure around it. Rather than a single static target sitting in the background, Challenges frame growth as a series of milestones to hit, which tends to keep momentum higher over a multi-month push than a single distant number does.

This matters most for solo founders and small teams without a manager checking in on quarterly targets - the accountability has to come from the tool itself, or from a community you're sharing progress with.

Why Goals Alone Aren't Enough

A goal without visibility becomes background noise. If checking progress requires opening a spreadsheet, exporting Stripe data, and doing manual math, most founders simply stop checking - not because the goal stopped mattering, but because the friction of checking it became higher than the perceived value of checking that often.

Distant goals lose their pull over time. "$10k MRR by December" feels motivating in January and abstract by August, especially through a slow month. Breaking a large goal into smaller, checkable milestones keeps the target close enough to feel real on a week-to-week basis, rather than becoming a number you've mentally filed away as "eventually."

Solo founders lack a built-in accountability structure. In a larger company, a goal shows up in a board deck or a manager's 1:1. A solo founder or two-person team has no equivalent structure by default - the tool has to provide the check-in cadence that a manager or board would otherwise create.

How to Set Up a Goal

Open the Goals section in your Chartsy dashboard.
Choose a metric - MRR, subscriber count, or both.
Set a target and a timeframe - for example, "$8,000 MRR by the end of Q3."
Check progress anytime - Chartsy calculates your current standing against the goal automatically from your live Stripe or Paddle data, with no manual updates needed.

From there, Share Progress can turn that same goal into a shareable image any time you want to post an update publicly.

What a Realistic Goal Looks Like

A goal that's motivating but not discouraging usually sits somewhere between "we'll clearly hit this without trying" and "this requires a miracle." A useful starting point is your trailing growth rate extrapolated forward, with a modest stretch on top - if you've been growing MRR 8% month over month, a goal built around 10-12% monthly growth is ambitious without being disconnected from your actual trajectory. Goals set with no reference to historical growth rate tend to either get hit trivially early (and stop motivating anything) or missed so consistently that they stop being taken seriously.

Start Tracking a Goal

Goals are available to any Chartsy account with a connected Stripe or Paddle account.

Set your first growth goal →

Frequently Asked Questions About Chartsy Goals & Challenges

What metrics can I set a goal for in Chartsy? Typically MRR and subscriber count, either individually or together. The goal tracks live against your connected Stripe or Paddle data, so progress updates automatically as new revenue and subscribers come in.

How is a Challenge different from a regular goal? A goal is a single target and timeframe you're tracking toward. Challenges add a gamified, milestone-based structure on top, designed to keep momentum higher over a multi-month push than tracking one distant number alone.

Do I need to manually update my progress toward a goal? No - Chartsy calculates progress automatically from your connected Stripe or Paddle data. There's no spreadsheet to maintain or manual export to run.

Can I share my goal progress publicly? Yes - the Share Progress feature generates a shareable image of your progress toward any goal you've set, with an optional privacy toggle that hides the exact dollar amount.

How should I set a realistic growth goal? A common approach is to start from your actual trailing growth rate and add a modest stretch on top, rather than picking a goal disconnected from your historical trajectory. Goals set with no reference to past performance tend to be either trivially easy or consistently missed.