3）MRR（月度经常性收入）是以月度为频率的经常性收入，它是对SaaS公司进行业务分析时的重要指标。需要注意的地方有，不要把非经常性收入算进来；不要把合同金额当成收入。
Investors more highly value companies where the majority of total revenue comes from product revenue (vs. from services). Why? Services revenue is non-recurring, has much lower margins, and is less scalable. Product revenue is the what you generate from the sale of the software or product itself. ARR (annual recurring revenue) is a measure of revenue components that are recurring in nature. It should exclude one-time (non-recurring) fees and professional service fees.
ARR per customer: Is this flat or growing? If you are up-selling or cross-selling your customers, then it should be growing, which is a positive indicator for a healthy business.
MRR (monthly recurring revenue): Often, people will multiply one month’s all-in bookings by 12 to get to ARR. Common mistakes with this method include: (1) counting non-recurring fees such as hardware, setup, installation, professional services/ consulting agreements; (2) counting bookings (see #1).
第三、毛利润（Gross Profit） 毛利润=销售收入-销售成本。
毛利润（率）衡量了主营业务在发生期间费用之前的销售获利水平。 在确定毛利润的过程中，最重要的是需要把销售成本的组成部分拎清楚。销售成本内所包含的成本项目是和销售商品及提供服务直接相关的成
本项目。在看销售成本组成时，需要注意的是公司在进行料工费的分配时是否符合会计上“制造成本”法的要求。
通常，制造业的毛利率会偏低，而软件、快消品行业的毛利率保守的讲也至少在60%以上。
实际上，投资人在进行财务指标衡量时未必是严格按照会计规定进行项目调整的，行业惯例及其所反映的经济实质才是做报表调整背后的原因。 While top-line bookings growth is super important, investors want to understand how profitable that revenue stream is. Gross profit provides that measure.
What’s included in gross profit may vary by company, but in general all costs associated with the manufacturing, delivery, and support of a product/service should be included.
So be prepared to break down what’s included in — and excluded — from that gross profit figure.
第四、合同总价值vs.年度合同价值（Total Contract Value (TCV) vs. Annual Contract Value (ACV)）
合同总价值（TCV），指的是一份商业合同的签约金额，无论合同的服务期限是一个月、几个月或长于一年。
年度合同价值（ACV），指的是经过年化处理后的合同金额。通常而言，会以单个用户的平均ACV对销售能力和用户的接受度进行分析。这是SaaS业务的常用分析指标。
需要指出的是，对ACV的分析不能离开下文提到的CAC（获客成本）分析，这两者结合在一起才能看出业务的优劣。
TCV (total contract value) is the total value of the contract, and can be shorter or longer in duration. Make sure TCV also includes the value from one-time charges, professional service fees, and recurring charges.
ACV (annual contract value), on the other hand, measures the value of the contract over a 12-month period. Questions to ask about ACV:
What is the size? Are you getting a few hundred dollars per month from your customers, or are you able to close large deals? Of course, this depends on the market you are targeting (SMB vs. mid-market vs. enterprise). Is it growing (and especially not shrinking)? If it’s growing, it means customers are paying you more on average for your product over time. That implies either your product is fundamentally doing more (adding features and capabilities) to warrant that increase, or is delivering so much value customers (improved functionality over alternatives) that they are willing to pay more for it.
第五、获客成本/ CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) … (Blended vs. Paid, Organic vs. Inorganic)
获客成本（CAC）这一项在原文中是第八条，由于它的重要性，我们将其提前至第五条。
CAC是获取单个新用户所需花费的全部成本。 其计算公式为：CAC=销售费用总额/期间新增用户数。 在确定CAC时，总体上要遵循谨慎性原则：
首先，需要遵循完整性原则把在经济实质上归属于获取新客户的所有费用都包括进来（销售行为中的打折、返点都属于此类）。
其次，必须将来自不同渠道的新客户进行区分。来自不同渠道的用户所对应的CAC可能是不同的。另外，因为总会有一部分用户是自己找过来而不是通过你的市场投入吸引过来的，这一类用户不可以进入CAC计算公式的分母项。
所以，严格意义上的CAC是所谓的paid CAC，即，通过付出市场费用而获取的用户所对应的CAC。
把来自不同获客渠道的用户所对应的ARR和paid CAC进行对比可以看出特定类别用户的利润贡献度以及市场投入的可行性。另外，对特定市场渠道加大投入可能会引起该渠道paid CAC的变化，其变化情况和背后的原因可能非常重要。
Customer acquisition cost or CAC should be the full cost of acquiring users, stated on a per user basis. Unfortunately, CAC metrics come in all shapes and sizes.
One common problem with CAC metrics is failing to include all the costs incurred in user acquisition such as referral fees, credits, or discounts. Another common problem is to calculate CAC as a “blended” cost (including users acquired organically) rather than isolating users acquired through “paid” marketing. While blended CAC [total acquisition cost / total new customers acquired across all channels] isn’t wrong, it doesn’t inform how well your paid campaigns are working and whether they’re profitable.
This is why investors consider paid CAC [total acquisition cost/ new customers acquired through paid marketing] to be more important than blended CAC in evaluating the viability of a business — it informs whether a company can scale up its user acquisition budget profitably. While an argument can be made in some cases that paid acquisition contributes to organic acquisition, one would need to demonstrate proof of that effect to put weight on blended CAC. Many investors do like seeing both, however: the blended number as well as the CAC, broken out by paid/unpaid. We also like seeing the breakdown by dollars of paid customer acquisition channels: for example, how much does a paying customer cost if they were acquired via Facebook?
Counterintuitively, it turns out that costs typically go up as you try and reach a larger audience. So it might cost you $1 to acquire your first 1,000 users, $2 to acquire your next 10,000, and $5 to $10 to acquire your next 100,000. That’s why you can’t afford to ignore the metrics about volume of users acquired via each channel.
第六、用户生命周期总价值/LTV (Life Time Value)
严格来讲，LTV的定义是：特定用户对公司贡献的未来所有期间净利润的现值。现值是一个财务管理上的概念，简单的讲，未来的钱没有现在的钱值钱，所以，折现就是要把未来经济利益的面值折算成为现在的价值。 我们不在此向读者具体展示和说明LTV的计算公式，仅仅说明一下LTV的用途以及需要注意的事项。
对于初创企业，LTV的主要用途是用于衡量公司(特别是SaaS公司)市场支出的有效性并用以决定是否需要进入加速扩大市场支出的阶段。理想而言，SaaS公司LTV/CAC的经验比率数字应该大于3。