The term 'retention margin' doesn't seem like a commonly-used term (according to a quick Google search, anyway).<p>The definition seems identical to the commonly-used term 'contribution margin', i.e. revenue less variable costs.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contribution_margin" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contribution_margin</a>
I think their definition of Net Revenue Retention (at least my understanding) is wrong as it includes growth from net-new MRR. This confounds retention with growth and isn't really helpful to answer what you really want to know: where is the revenue coming from? Retention IMU should be Past MRR plus upgrades less downgrades less churn (divided by past MRR). It explicitly does not include new customers.<p>Some of the other metrics are not the priority ones we look at either; your core measures really depend on if you looking for profitability or growth.
Regarding the casual app/graphs, the graphs are cool but they feel very sluggish and slow to load. It takes 15 seconds to load the page + the top two graphs on a 250Mb/s wired connection on a powerful PC.
What are the differences between service costs and operating costs? [1]<p>I'm surprised not to see taxes and other external costs being taken into account in the Retention Margin. Are they pre-subtracted from gross sales as the input of RM ?<p>[1] edit: found the answer in the Learn More section: <a href="https://www.causal.app/saas-metrics/retention-margin" rel="nofollow">https://www.causal.app/saas-metrics/retention-margin</a>
Maybe not the right question to be asking, but what tools does one use to track these types metrics in 2021 for a small 1-2 person company? Google sheets?