Sales compensation plans play a critical role in the success and scaling of SaaS companies. The transition from founder-led sales to scalable, team-driven sales models can be challenging. The transition can stop companies from hitting the next level of ARR. Higher ARR, higher valuation. A well-designed sales compensation plan motivates teams, aligns with corporate objectives, […]
Why Legal Readiness Can Make or Break Your SaaS Exit
Achieving a $100 (or pick your number) million SaaS exit isn’t just about revenue milestones or growth rates. Of course, that’s very important. It’s also about the “boring” stuff. You must ensure your business is legally sound and prepared for the rigorous scrutiny of buyers. In a recent webinar, I hosted legal expert Omeed Tabiei. […]
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 Calculate the SaaS Magic Number
SaaS operators must understand the balance between sales and marketing spend and the acquisition of net new revenue. Enter the SaaS Magic Number. Here are my thoughts on how to use the Magic Number in 2025. Overinvest in sales and marketing relative to your new SaaS ARR bookings and will you not the see the […]
How to Properly Structure Your SaaS Accounting Foundation
The Software as a Service (SaaS) business model revolutionized the on-premise software industry. I started out in software in 2004. One-time software sales and annual maintenance at 18% of the perpetual license. We weren’t talking CAC Payback and Gross Revenue Retention. But we were talking gross margins and margins by revenue stream. SaaS introduced a […]
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Understanding Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue: A Comprehensive Guide
Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue (CARR) was an obscure metric in the SaaS world years ago. Today, it’s become a hot and controversial SaaS metric when discussing company growth and SaaS valuations. CARR is a forward-looking SaaS revenue metric that estimates the maximum revenue size of a SaaS company. CARR combines two important aspects of revenue: […]
How to Analyze a SaaS Company for Sale
Who doesn’t like to browse SaaS companies for sale? Some listings provide no data while others give us just enough information to analyze the performance of the company. Given enough information in the listing, we can extract double the amount of data, metrics, and insight from the publicly available data in the listing. In the […]
The Foundation of Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
I’ve calculated a lot of SaaS metrics for a lot of SaaS companies. To make SaaS metrics repeatable and accurate, we must follow a sequential process. This is especially relevant for sales and marketing efficiency metrics. CAC, or customer acquisition cost, is by itself not a stand-alone metric. But it feeds all sales and marketing […]
The 4 Key SaaS Finance Data Sources
There are four key finance data sources that we need monthly to scale our SaaS business. This data can mean the difference between running financially blind and financial transparency. The data sources that I outline below are core to my financial framework. I follow a sequential process to build data discipline and data integrity. You […]
How to Correctly Calculate your SaaS Gross Profit Margin
There are many financial metrics that I calculate and review each month, and this includes my SaaS gross margin. Of course, it’s not just your overall gross margin that is important. You must also calculate and understand gross margins for each of your revenue streams. Depending on your business model, these revenue streams may include […]