How Payment-Verified Revenue Works
Services like TrustMRR check a startup's revenue by reading it straight from its payment processor with a read-only key. Here is what that proves, what it leaves out, and how it compares with filed accounts and founder screenshots.
Checked against TrustMRR's FAQ and Terms of Service (last updated Oct 9, 2026), Stripe's restricted API keys and Billing analytics documentation, and GOV.UK's annual accounts guidance
As of · ways a solo company's revenue gets checked, as each source describes them16
| Method | Who checks it | What it proves | What it can't show | Label here | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payment-processor API connection with a read-only key (e.g. TrustMRR with a Stripe restricted key) | The service, from the processor's own data | Revenue, MRR and customer counts that ran through the connected account, as the service computes them | Sales through any processor that isn't connected; costs and profit; the service's MRR can differ from the processor's own by up to 30% | Verified | 1, 2 |
| App-store reporting key (e.g. TrustMRR's App Store connection) | The service, from Apple's sales reports | Customer sales before Apple's commission, minus refunds, converted to USD | Apple's proceeds or bank payouts; MRR, customer counts and churn; it isn't live, as reports usually arrive the next day | Verified | 1 |
| Filed company accounts (e.g. a UK private limited company at Companies House) | The company files them; small companies can skip the audit | The balance sheet as filed, on the public register | Turnover, often: small companies can choose not to file a profit and loss account, and micro-entities can send only a balance sheet | Filed | 6 |
| An acquirer's filing (e.g. a listed buyer's annual report) | The buyer's auditor audits the financial statements | What the buyer paid, and how it booked the cash, earn-outs and retention pay | The startup's own revenue, often: Wix, for example, presented no pro forma results for its Base44 deal, calling the effects not material | Filed | 7 |
| Founder screenshot or self-report (e.g. a dashboard image posted on social media) | Nobody independent | What the founder says, and when | Anything a third party has checked | Founder-stated | 8 |
One row per way a revenue figure reaches the public, with an example of each. "What it proves" and "What it can't show" follow each source's own description: TrustMRR's FAQ and terms for the two connections, GOV.UK for UK company accounts, and an acquirer's annual report on Form 20-F. "Label here" is the figure label OneManOnly gives a figure from that method; only Verified and Filed revenue figures can rank, and founder-stated figures appear only in the text. This page reproduces no company's figures from any verification service. See how we label figures.
How it works
A read-only key, not a password
Stripe calls it a restricted API key: a key that starts with rk_live_ and can do only what its owner allows. For each kind of data, the owner picks None, Read or Write, and every permission starts at None. Stripe recommends restricted keys over unrestricted secret keys, and calls them the safer way to share access with a third party: a leaked one can do only what it was allowed to do.3
TrustMRR's terms say it accepts only restricted rk_live_ keys from Stripe, with read-only access to charges, subscriptions and account information. Its FAQ says the keys can't charge customers or change the payment account, and that the founder can update or remove them from a dashboard.21
Getting a revenue figure verified, step by step
- 1Create a restricted key in the Stripe Dashboard and set the resources it needs to ReadYoutime not published · $0
- 2Choose "Add startup" on TrustMRR and paste the keyYoubase listing $0
- 3The service reads aggregate revenue figures through the API and builds the profileTooltime not published
- 4Later syncs refresh the figuresTooltypically hourly
The steps and the $0 base listing are as TrustMRR and Stripe describe them; neither publishes how long the setup takes.13
Which processors can connect
TrustMRR's FAQ lists Stripe, LemonSqueezy, Polar, Paddle, DodoPayment, RevenueCat, Superwall, the App Store, Creem, Whop and Shopify, connected by a read-only or scoped read key, an Apple reporting key or the Shopify app. It adds that "there is no other way to add a startup." Its terms, last updated Oct 9, 2026, name a shorter list: Stripe, LemonSqueezy, Polar and DodoPayment.12
A startup can link a secondary provider to combine revenue from more than one source, but its primary provider is fixed per listing.1
What the service reads
Aggregates, not customers. TrustMRR's terms list what it collects: total revenue, MRR (monthly recurring revenue), revenue for the last 30 days, the total customer count, active subscriptions, churn, growth percentages and charge counts. They say it doesn't collect customer names, emails, addresses or payment details.2
Its terms also say the figures are "pulled directly from your payment provider's API," and that it doesn't modify them.2
How MRR is worked out
Stripe defines MRR as the sum of the monthly-normalized value of all active and past-due subscriptions. A yearly plan counts as one-twelfth of its price each month: in Stripe's example, 100 subscribers at 100 USD a month plus 50 at 600 USD a year make 12,500 USD of MRR. ARR, annual recurring revenue, is MRR times 12.45
Some things stay out. Stripe's MRR excludes taxes, free plans and metered (usage-based) products, and subscriptions still in a trial. One-off refunds don't change it, how discounts count depends on the account's settings, and a failed payment counts against it only when the subscription finally goes unpaid. So MRR is a measure of subscriptions in force, not of cash collected that month.45
A verification service doesn't read the processor's own MRR figure. TrustMRR says it rebuilds MRR, churn and revenue from raw transaction data, and that because providers handle refunds, trials, prorations and currency conversion in their own undocumented ways, its numbers can differ from a provider's dashboard by up to 30%.1
A snapshot with a date
TrustMRR says its revenue syncs run automatically, typically every hour. The App Store connection is slower: Apple's reports usually arrive the following day, so that figure isn't live. If a key expires, TrustMRR says the founder can update it in the dashboard.1
That's why a verified figure only means something with its date attached. On this site, every Verified figure is shown as a dated snapshot.8
Who is in the sample
Every startup on a service like this is there because its founder chose to connect a key; TrustMRR says there's no other way in. The founders who connect are the ones who want their numbers seen, so the set is self-selected. It says nothing about the startups that never connect.1
TrustMRR's terms say it uses the figures to display a startup's revenue and to include it "in revenue leaderboards and rankings." A founder can also switch on an anonymous mode, which hides the startup's name but keeps its verified metrics public.21
What "verified" doesn't prove
A payment connection proves money moved through an account. It doesn't show:
- Sales elsewhere. The figures come from the connected providers' APIs, so a sale paid through anything not connected isn't in them.2
- Costs and profit. The service reads revenue. When a founder lists a startup for sale, TrustMRR asks for the last 30 days' profit margin, and its terms say it doesn't verify information that buyers or sellers provide.12
- An exact match with the processor. The service's own reconstruction can differ from the provider's dashboard by up to 30%.1
- The money that reaches the founder. For the App Store, the figure is customer sales before Apple's commission, which TrustMRR says is different from Apple's proceeds or bank payouts.1
How OneManOnly uses it
A payment-verified figure earns the Verified label here, shown with its date and the service it came from, and described as a snapshot of a self-selected group. Filed figures, from registers and acquirers' filings, earn the Filed label. Both can rank; a founder's own figure stays in the text, labeled Founder-stated.8
Verification services set their own rules for reuse, too. TrustMRR's terms say its API data can't be publicly displayed, republished or built into a customer-facing product without its prior written permission, and they rule out cloning or reproducing its rankings. So this page explains the method and reproduces none of its data.2
Sources
- TrustMRR, FAQ ("Getting Started" and "Verification, Privacy, and Security"), retrieved 2026-10-13.
- TrustMRR, Terms of Service, last updated 2026-10-09 (sections 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10), retrieved 2026-10-13.
- Stripe, Restricted API keys, Stripe Documentation, retrieved 2026-10-13.
- Stripe, Billing analytics ("Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)" definition), Stripe Documentation, retrieved 2026-10-13.
- Stripe Support, Understanding Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), retrieved 2026-10-13.
- GOV.UK, Prepare annual accounts for a private limited company: Micro-entities, small and dormant companies (UK), retrieved 2026-10-13.
- Wix.com Ltd., Annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, Note 3 "Business Combinations" and the auditor's report, filed 2026-03-05, retrieved 2026-10-13. Cited as an example of an acquirer's filing.
- OneManOnly, How we label figures, retrieved 2026-10-13.