Glossary
The Churn Tax
The Churn Tax is the total economic impact of revenue churn: lost revenue, forfeited expansion, and replacement cost. The true cost is 1.5-2.5x reported churn.
Net Revenue Retention
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) measures revenue growth from existing customers including expansion, contraction, and churn. NRR above 105% signals a compounding customer base.
Gross Revenue Retention
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) measures recurring revenue kept from existing customers before expansion. GRR of 93-96% signals strong product-market fit and CS execution.
Revenue Leakage
Revenue leakage is recurring revenue lost through churn, downgrades, failed renewals, and missed expansion. Most SaaS companies undercount it by 40-60%.
Customer Success Maturity
Customer Success maturity measures how advanced a company's post-sale revenue operations are across seven dimensions, from reactive support to predictive revenue engine.
Expansion Revenue
Expansion revenue is additional recurring revenue from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, and seat growth, the growth engine inside your installed base.
Post-Sale Revenue Engine
A post-sale revenue engine is an integrated system of people, process, data, and technology that retains, expands, and grows revenue from existing customers.
Logo Churn vs Revenue Churn
Logo churn counts lost customers. Revenue churn measures lost ARR. Tracking one without the other hides the real financial impact of customer attrition.
CS Operating Model
A CS operating model defines how a Customer Success organization is structured, staffed, measured, and aligned to drive retention and expansion revenue.
Time to Value
Time to Value (TTV) is how long it takes a new customer to realize measurable outcomes from your product. Shorter TTV directly reduces early-stage churn risk.