SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2021

Moving from Churn to NRR as the Core Retention Metric. NPS is now the #1 metric at HubSpot — for all employees. We’ve talked about this so many times over the years, that the real power of NPS is that it’s the one metric every employee in every functional area can impact. NPS is A Great Core Metric. #3.

Metrics 62

Metrics SMB Scale B2C 62

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

SaaS metrics can be more confusing than one might think. My SaaS Metrics Primer: * ARR always = 12x MRR. Look, ARR and MRR aren’t really GAAP metrics. This sounds minor, but it isn’t. “Burn Rate” is another non-GAAP but critical SaaS metric, and it’s exactly how much cash goes out the door.

Metrics 317

Metrics Banking Scale Churn 317

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

” The company grew from $15M in ARR to more than $1B with this model, consistently achieving better than 130% net dollar retention. With this model, Twilio maintained contracted revenue at less than 50% of ARR while achieving industry-leading retention metrics. Sales teams lose leverage.

SaaS Payments 279

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 279

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Driving revenue through acquisition, expansion, and retention. “Having highly tenured reps tends to drive the highest performance, and good managers are key to retention.” “Having highly tenured reps tends to drive the highest performance, and good managers are key to retention.” ” 3.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 263

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

For a VP of Customer Success (VPCS), their “quota” or ownership should revolve around two key metrics: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Gross Retention Rate (GRR). NRR is the North Star metric for customer successit measures how much revenue youre retaining and expanding from your existing customer base.

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 162

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Customer Success Churn Retention 162

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2024

I mean, Canva’s metrics for example are just awesome. But with everyone discussing PLG, there just isn’t enough discussion in B2B of Product-Led Retention. But our B2C friends obsess about Product-Led Retention. But that’s not really Product-Led Retention. Or at least, they hoped so. But far from all.

Retention 321

Retention B2C B2B Churn 321

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

The event is known for its focused content on SaaS growth strategies, metrics, and best practices, making it particularly valuable for B2B SaaS companies. It’s the largest non-vendor SaaS conference in the world, typically drawing over 12,000 SaaS founders, executives, and investors.

Software 246

Software Scale Venture Capital SaaS 246

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

Net Dollar Retention. More compelling than simply the growth in count is the disparity in Net Dollar Retention of these large customers. If that’s not a suite… Founded ten years ago, the company has scaled rapidly selling their software management suite to small and large companies alike. Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. -.

Metrics 311

Metrics Outsourced Development Scale Cloud 311

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Metrics are the key to evaluating success and setting goals, but not every SaaS business should orient itself around the same one-size-fits-all numbers. This flexible mindset creates just the right conditions for embracing evolving business models and new metrics. The Metric Monolith: The Rise and Fall. Gross Retention = 90% +.

Metrics 277

Metrics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 277

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2024

Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of Beefree, and Enrica Lipari, the People and Culture Director of Beefree’s parent company, Growens, share 5 secrets to a high employee retention rate. You also coach them on figuring out whether the new thing is working or not and what metrics you should measure. Why do they stay?

Retention 317

Retention Scale Company Culture Leadership 317

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2025

Meeting intensity KPI challenge : Sometimes AI efficiencies can reduce a company’s core metrics (like Calendly’s “meeting intensity”), requiring leadership to make conscientious decisions about value tradeoffs. Building separate AI interfaces can create unnecessary tech debt and learning curves.

AI 204

AI Scale Education User Experience 204

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 18, 2021

The SaaS industry is full of advice on the perfect product metrics to gauge your users’ activation, engagement, and interactions. If you don’t know exactly what questions you want answered, these product metrics leave you blinded by the very data you hoped would open your eyes. What are product metrics?

Metrics 269

Metrics Customer Lifetime Value User Experience Engagement 269

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Net Dollar Retention. Amplitude offers three key products: analytics for measuring user behavior, experiment for testing new user flows, and recommendation which optimizes content for different user segments. Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. -. Gross Margin. Sales Efficiency. -. Net Income Margin. Cash Flow from Operations Margin. Customer Count.

Benchmarks 289

Benchmarks Metrics PayPal Enterprise 289

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2025

Time-to-value is your most critical early metric. Time-to-value plummeted Expansion revenue became almost automatic Sales cycles got more honest and efficient The 5 Things We Learned About Customer Success at $100M+ ARR Sales actually exaggerates. Shocking, I know. But a great CS team keeps promises realistic and achievable.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Churn 246

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2022

So don’t get me wrong — NRR is a Top 3 Metric for any SaaS company. And it doesn’t put retention as goal #1. Your gross revenue retention — what % of the revenue base a CSM has at the start of the year that you retain, before upgrades and growth. Low NRR is a flag, a canary in the coalmine. Don’t.

Customer Success 264

Customer Success Metrics Scale Retention 264

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

Just look at the numbers: Enterprise customers bring 95%+ best-in-class retention vs. 85% in mid-market. But the rewards – higher retention, bigger deals, and ultimately a much larger TAM – make it worth the investment. That compounds dramatically over time.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

Some fun facts: 10+ years of SaaStr conference attendance Partner at Point Nine Capital, a leading early-stage VC firm Geographic reach: Actively investing across Europe, US, and Australia Notable portfolio: Zendesk, Algolia, Contentful, Loom (and many more) Known for his “five ways to build a $100M business” framework The 5 Key Things (..)

Data 144

Data Acquisition AI Finance 144

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

What data and metrics do you need to convince SaaS investors you’re in good shape and aligned with what they care about? These metrics are more targeted to those preparing for a Series A or B round and could make the difference between an excited-to-invest-in-you investor and a pass. There are a few cool ways to visualize this data.

Metrics 189

Metrics Sales Hiring Retention Churn 189

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

In this week’s Workshop Wednesday , Salesforce Ventures Investor, Jessica Bartos, shares the 5 metrics every SaaS company should care about in any market environment, especially the one we’re currently in. Growth Is Still Number One Growth is still the number one metric, but it’s not the only one. You do that by showing momentum.

Metrics 264

Metrics Marketing SaaS SMB 264

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday.com, and the founder of SaaStr. For a quick recap on SaaS metrics: What is ARR in SaaS? So now we must be smarter about the most important SaaS metrics because they matter again. The takeaway?

Metrics 245

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 245

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

Check out this 2018 Europa session with Guillaume Princen, Head of France and Southern Europe @ Stripe, where he talks about the metrics you need to be focused on in your startup. If you don’t have the time to watch the whole session, here are the main metrics you should be mindful of. MRR, obviously. We talked about churn.

SaaS Payments 246

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Implementation of Product-Led Growth The transition to product-led growth (PLG) required understanding and implementing a fundamentally different business model.

Scale 162

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 162

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2023

“Retention is the new acquisition,” says Co-Founder and CEO of Insider, Hande Cilingir. Harvard Business School Research says that “increasing customer retention rates by only 5% increase a company’s profits by 25-95%.” Customer retention means building relationships with people. That’s huge! a feat Insider has achieved.

Retention 242

Retention Software Review Revenue Systems Review 242

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

Metrics, Metrics, Metrics The first thing Secureframe thinks about is metrics. If you don’t know your key company or North Star metrics, talk to your investors or other experts to figure out what they should be. So they can take action on the metrics in real time if they’re going in a direction they don’t like.

Sales Recruiting 304

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 304

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

Founder-led sales provides invaluable dat a When founders sell the first $2-3M, they generate critical insights on customers, conversion rates, and retention that inform the GTM strategy. Be explicit about success metrics Define what success looks like beyond revenue targets to align expectations.

Sales Recruiting 236

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 236

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., net retention and CAC payback). Subscribe now What Happened in Q1?

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 2020

In other words, we hypothesize companies with favorable metrics responded in greater numbers. Just pick a metric. Net dollar retention is the most common customer success goal, used by about 37% of respondents. Logo retention is second at about 33%. We use XDR to mean both SDR and BDR. This was surprisingly low.

Headcount 364

Headcount Scale Benchmarks Retention 364

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 30, 2024

As we all know, the SaaS ecosystem has changed dramatically over the last few years, and customer retention and expansion are becoming increasingly important for SaaS … Account Management is a delightfully intricate balance of art and science. Satisfaction > Adoption when it comes to determining a good success metric.

Management 105

Management B2B SaaS Scale 105

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

So SaaS Capital put out its latest report on SaaS retention and NRR after having surveyed over 1,500 SaaS companies and professionals. There are a lot of great learnings and metrics in the report, and a few stood out to me: #1. Median NRR is 102% across all SaaS companies, Media Gross Retention is 91%. You can download it here.

Startup 362

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 362

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Tracking the right user metrics helps you precisely identify issues in the product experience rather than feeling lost in a sea of data. In this article, Ill cover 10 crucial user metrics every product manager should track to turn data into decisions that increase product adoption. Emphasis is on the word right.

Metrics 59

Metrics Scale Software Review Churn 59

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2021

Many have NRR as a top-level company metric. I love having NRR be the #1 metric for Customer Success. It’s also a sign of a great VP of Customer Success when they are willing to sign up for growing NRR as the #1 metric and what their variable comp is tried to. That’s a great deal all around.

Customer Success 359

Customer Success Trends Retention Metrics 359

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 21, 2025

Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions.

Cloud 162

Cloud Pricing Subscription Payment Features 162

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2020

In this analysis, I’ve compared the metrics of the two companies at the time of IPO. Net Dollar Retention. Examining SaaS ratios, we see Asana charts lesser net dollar retention than SmartSheet. Asana competes with SmartSheet, another publicly traded productivity company. Let me know which you prefer. SmartSheet.

Payment Solutions 363

Payment Solutions Payments Outsourced Development Payment Services 363

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 7, 2025

Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions.

Cloud 157

Cloud Forecasting Subscription Payment Features 157

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions.

Cloud 144

Cloud Banking Payment Features Subscription 144

Tom Tunguz

MAY 16, 2024

Both the companies with negative account retention still see relatively minor account churn : 15-25% account churn at these price points is common. The top quartile software companies around 125% today & the companies above are very similar with a median of 129% net dollar retention (NDR). NDR is almost equal.

AI 296

AI Churn Trends Pricing 296

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 14, 2022

First, Deliberately Underselling means optimizing the sales process for Net Dollar Retention (NDR). Third, Bill revealed his Mojo Metric , his north-star metric. The Mojo Metric reports the net change in pipeline daily. I asked him to share his views on land & expand team structure & quotas. We agree there!

Startup 342

Startup Construction Sales Compensation 342