Lifecycle Stages
Lifecycle stages track where each contact sits in your customer journey — from anonymous visitor to paying customer (or churned). Apex uses lifecycle stages to power funnel reporting, activation tracking, and retention analysis.
Every contact has a lifecycle field that holds their current stage. The available stages are defined by your conversion model — different business types have different journeys.
When a contact's lifecycle changes, Apex records the transition timestamp (lifecycleChangedAt), which feeds time-to-activate calculations and retention cohort analysis.
| Stage | Description |
|---|
| Visitor | Anonymous site visitor, not yet identified |
| Lead | Identified via form submission or tracking |
| MQL | Marketing Qualified — meets scoring threshold for marketing signals |
| SQL | Sales Qualified — accepted by sales team for outreach |
| Opportunity | Active deal in pipeline |
| Customer | Closed-won, paying customer |
| Churned | Previously a customer, no longer active |
| Stage | Description |
|---|
| Visitor | Anonymous site visitor |
| Signup | Created an account |
| Activated | Completed key activation milestones |
| Customer | Converted to a paid plan |
| Expanded | Upgraded plan or added seats |
| Churned | Cancelled or stopped using the product |
| Stage | Description |
|---|
| Visitor | Browsing the store |
| Browser | Viewed product pages |
| Cart | Added items to cart |
| Customer | Completed a purchase |
| Repeat | Made multiple purchases |
| Stage | Description |
|---|
| Visitor | Browsing the platform |
| Registered | Created an account (either side) |
| Active | Engaging with listings or searches |
| Transacted | Completed a transaction |
| Power User | High-frequency transactor |
| Stage | Description |
|---|
| Visitor | Anonymous site visitor |
| Signup | Created an account |
| Activated | Completed activation milestones |
| PQL | Product Qualified — high product engagement signals |
| Customer | Converted to paid (often with sales assistance) |
| Expanded | Upgraded or expanded usage |
| Churned | No longer active |
- Funnel — Funnel stages that use the
contacts_in_stage count method tally contacts by lifecycle stage. This is how the funnel knows how many MQLs or activated users you have.
- Scoring — PQL scoring uses lifecycle stage as an input signal. Contacts who've reached
activated or customer score higher on the activation dimension.
- Activation dashboard — Tracks the progression from signup → activated → customer, using lifecycle transitions.
- Retention dashboard — Uses lifecycle to determine churn rates. Contacts with
lifecycle: "churned" are counted in churn cohorts.
- Causal Ledger — Lifecycle-affecting changes (vertical switches, funnel model changes) are recorded on the timeline.
Each conversion model defines a default lifecycle stage for new contacts. For sales-assisted models, new contacts start as lead. For self-serve models, they start as visitor or signup depending on how they're created.
- B2B SaaS Wiring Guide — how lifecycle, Stripe, and events connect to your dashboards
- Understand conversion models — models define which lifecycle stages are available
- View the funnel — funnel stages are powered by lifecycle data
- Track activation — see how contacts progress through early stages