Blog · Board and management reporting · SaaS
The ten customer base KPIs a B2B SaaS company should run on, each with its formula, the export it comes from and what it tells you: net revenue retention by cohort, gross revenue retention, seat utilisation before renewal, whitespace reconciled to ARR, expansion pipeline against whitespace, untouched accounts by ARR, time to value, renewal calendar coverage, expansion by source, and ARR concentration. Also the three measures most SaaS teams miss, the figures to drop, the identities, and who owns what.
In SaaS most of next year's revenue is already a customer. The measures that matter describe that base: which cohorts are growing, which accounts are using what they bought, where the room to expand is, and whether anyone is working it.
| # | Measure | Formula | Export | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Net revenue retention by cohort | ARR now from customers active a year ago ÷ their ARR then, by start-year cohort | Subscription or billing system | Which cohorts grow and which shrink |
| 2 | Gross revenue retention | As above, capped at each customer's prior ARR | Subscription system | The floor under the expansion |
| 3 | Seat utilisation before renewal | Active seats ÷ contracted seats, against the curve for months since start; accounts under the curve within 6 months of renewal | Usage export; contract file | Downsells and cancellations, ahead of time |
| 4 | Whitespace reconciled to ARR | Potential seats and products − held, valued at the account's prices; ARR + whitespace = stated potential | Subscription system; account data | Room to grow, by account |
| 5 | Expansion pipeline against whitespace | Open expansion pipeline at accounts ÷ whitespace at those accounts; whitespace with no pipeline | CRM; whitespace table | Whether reps work the gaps the data found |
| 6 | Untouched accounts, by ARR | ARR of accounts with no two-way contact within cadence ÷ total ARR | CRM; subscription system | Revenue nobody is talking to |
| 7 | Time to value | Days from contract to the usage milestone that predicts renewal | Usage export; onboarding records | First renewals at risk from the start |
| 8 | Renewal calendar coverage | ARR renewing in 180 days with an owner, a plan and a recent contact ÷ ARR renewing | Contract file; CRM | Renewals drifting to the date |
| 9 | Expansion by source | Expansion ARR from seats, products, usage and price, separately | Billing with line detail | Whether growth is customers buying more or being charged more |
| 10 | ARR concentration | Top ten customers' share of ARR; largest customer | Subscription system | Dependence |
Every one of these is computed per account, per rep and cohort, and in total, and every one carries an identity that must hold before the table is shown.
Retention by cohort. The blended figure goes in the board pack and the recent cohort goes unexamined.
Utilisation against the curve. One threshold for every account flags new customers and misses old ones.
Pipeline against whitespace. Expansion pipeline is reviewed as a total, never against where the room is.
Blended net revenue retention is 103 percent. By cohort: 2022 at 120, 2023 at 104, 2024 at 89. The 2024 cohort is 38 percent of ARR. Within it, accounts that reached the first-report milestone within 30 days retain at 108 percent and those that took longer than 60 days at 71. The finding is an onboarding problem in the newest customers, and the blended figure gave no hint.
Logo count. ARR-weighted measures.
Blended net revenue retention alone. By cohort, with gross beside it.
Logins as usage. A qualifying action within a window.
| Table | Must hold |
|---|---|
| ARR movement | Opening ARR + new + expansion − contraction − churn = closing ARR |
| Cohorts | Cohort ARR sums to total ARR |
| Seats | Contracted = active + inactive assigned + unassigned |
| Whitespace | Account ARR + whitespace = stated potential; account ARR sums to company ARR |
A table whose identity fails is a table with a row missing or counted twice. It is not shown until it is fixed.
| Measure | Owner | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Untouched accounts; renewal calendar coverage | Account managers; head of customer success | Weekly |
| Utilisation before renewal; time to value | Customer success | Weekly to monthly |
| Expansion pipeline against whitespace; expansion by source | Chief revenue officer | Monthly |
| Retention by cohort; concentration | Chief revenue officer; finance | Quarterly |
A measure with no owner is a metric, not a KPI; see KPI versus metric versus measure.
Ten measures from billing, usage, contracts and the CRM, all of them about customers you already have. Read retention by cohort, utilisation against the curve, and pipeline against the whitespace. Covirage computes all of them from the exports SaaS companies already produce, files only, with the definitions stated and the identities checked. See Covirage for SaaS sales teams.
Customers who started in different years behave differently: sold by a different team, at different prices, onboarded differently. A blended net revenue retention of 105 percent can be the 2021 cohort at 125 and the 2024 cohort at 88. The recent cohort is the one that describes the company as it is now.
For each account: seats it could use less seats it has, and products it could use less products it has, valued at its own prices. Reconciled means the account's current ARR plus its whitespace equals a stated potential, and the account ARR figures sum to the company's ARR. Without the reconciliation, whitespace is a number nobody can check.
Account by account. The data says account A has $180,000 of whitespace and account B has $8,000. If the expansion pipeline has three opportunities at B and none at A, reps are working familiarity, not opportunity. The share of whitespace covered by open pipeline is the measure.