There is a metric that I see frequently in the software startup world. Investors and board members ask: “What is your burn multiple?” If you do not have a clean answer to that question, let’s get you prepared. If your finance team is not calculating this metric at least quarterly, you are flying blind to […]
SaaS Metrics
CFO’s Guide to Disclosing Headline ARR Numbers
This ARR guide is written for CFOs, finance leaders, founders, CEOs, and investor-facing software operators who want to disclose Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) clearly, credibly, and consistently. I’ve collected and personally reviewed hundreds of public tech company ARR definition and calculations. I identified what actually works versus what creates confusion for investors, analysts, and internal […]
Essential SaaS Metrics for a Series A Fundraise
In SaaS, metrics aren’t just numbers on a dashboard. They tell the story of your company’s health, scalability, and valuation potential. At some point, your story must be supported by numbers and metrics. Let’s find out what metrics you need to showcase in a Series A funding round. When I talk to scaling founders, I […]
Top Financial Metrics Tracked by Usage-based Companies
I’ve been poring through public financial documents looking for ARR definitions and calculations. I could not find one pure-play usage company that defines ARR. If these companies don’t define ARR, what metrics do they track? In this post, I’ll walk you through the top financial metrics that usage-based companies track and disclose, why those metrics […]
AI ARR vs. SaaS ARR: How to Define and Calculate
How do leading SaaS companies define ARR? Especially as AI and usage-based pricing models reshape recurring revenue in SaaS? In this post, I break down how Verint, a CX automation leader, defines both Subscription ARR and AI ARR, and how they model these metrics internally for cash flow, investor reporting, and product strategy. I did […]
The Power 3 SaaS Metrics That Predict If You’ll Scale or Stall
Scaling a SaaS business sounds great—more logos, more revenue, better valuation. But there are three metrics that will determine if you have the potential to scale and if you are scaling versus growing. These aren’t vanity metrics. You are swimming upstream if these metrics are not improving. Looking for a path to profitability? Start calculating […]
Scaling with Confidence: The Ultimate SaaS Metrics Playbook
Operating your SaaS company without metrics is like flying a plane without instruments. Yeah, you are up in the air, but you might not know where you are headed. Or whether you have smooth air or turbulence ahead. As an in-house SaaS CFO and now fractional CFO, I’ve seen firsthand how critical it is to […]
How to Effectively Manage Your Professional Services Team with Metrics
Your professional services team plays an important role in your SaaS company. Botch a customer onboarding and you may have just lost valuable ARR. Services means different things to different companies. It could be a one-hour onboarding call or a twelve-month implementation project. Either way, we must understand several key concepts to effectively manage our […]
Quantifying Investments in Customer Success and Retention
CFO’s like to analyze and quantify as much as possible. Our utopia is data-driven decisions while avoiding analysis paralysis. We are known for saying “no” a lot, but really, we want to enable. So when it comes to the Customer Success function, how do we quantify this investment? Or general investments in retention programs? In […]
How to Calculate Your SaaS R&D Investment Efficiency
We make constant capital tradeoffs in our SaaS business. Even if we have a ton of cash in the bank, we still need to prioritize the investments in our business. Investment in our product roadmap is a constant discussion. Are we fixing technical debt, responding to whimsical feature requests, or investing in features and modules […]