Revenue & finance metrics

The company-level revenue and efficiency metrics RevOps owns and reports to leadership and finance. These are the numbers a board reviews.

Benchmarks softened materially in 2023–2024 vs the 2021 peak (growth and NRR down, CAC up). Benchmarkit 2024 ≈ private-SaaS median; Bessemer skews to top-tier cloud.

8 metrics

CAC ratio: Sales & marketing spent per $1 of new ARR (the durable way to express CAC).; S&M to acquire / new ARR; Benchmark ~$1.76 new-customer, ~$1.61 blended (Benchmarkit 2024); goal ≤ ~$1.50; The cost side of growth; a rising ratio signals channel saturation.
CAC payback: Months of gross margin to recover CAC.; CAC / (ARPA × gross margin) × 12; Benchmark SMB <12 mo, mid-market <18, enterprise <24 (Bessemer). Margin-adjusted is the rigorous version; How long capital is tied up before a customer turns cash-positive.
LTV:CAC: Lifetime value relative to acquisition cost.; LTV / CAC; Benchmark 3:1 is the accepted target; well above 5:1 can signal under-investment; The headline unit-economics health check.
Magic number: Net new ARR generated per dollar of prior-period sales & marketing.; (ΔQtr revenue × 4) / prior-qtr S&M; Benchmark >0.75 worth scaling, >1.0 strong, <0.5 fix the model first; A fast quarterly go/no-go on adding GTM spend.
Rule of 40: Growth rate plus profit margin.; YoY growth % + profit margin %; Benchmark ≥40 passes; most meaningful past ~$25M ARR. Many medians ran below 40 in 2024; Reconciles growth against burn in one number; heavy valuation input.
Burn multiple: Net cash burned per dollar of net new ARR.; net burn / net new ARR; Benchmark <1 great, 1–2 good, 2–3 suspect, >3 bad (esp. above $20M ARR); The capital-efficiency scorecard; increasingly the primary diligence metric.
NRR / GRR: Net and gross revenue retention (see Customer Success).; Benchmark Private-SaaS NRR median ~101%; GRR ~85–90% (higher for >$100K ACV); RevOps owns the canonical definition used company-wide.
Pipeline coverage: Open pipeline vs. the target across the company.; open pipeline / quota; Benchmark Reverse-engineer from win rate (~1 / win rate), not a flat 3x; The aggregate reachability check that anchors the forecast.

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