ARR

ARR — Annual Recurring Revenue, the main metric of the health of a subscription business. Calculated as MRR × 12, or the sum of all active annual contracts. This does not include one-time payments, consulting, integrations - only “automatic” revenue that will come again without a new sales cycle.

ARR is the metric by which investors evaluate SaaS companies and compare growth. Multiplier for valuing Russian B2B SaaS in 2025–2026: 4–8x ARR for companies with 50%+ year-on-year growth, 2–4x for companies with 20–50% growth. This is important for a marketer: every ruble of ARR is “worth” more than a ruble of one-time revenue.

In my projects with SaaS clients, I look at three derivatives of ARR: new ARR (how much new ARR came from new customers), expansion ARR (upsells and upsells to existing customers) and churn ARR (lost revenue due to unsubscribes). A healthy SaaS grows due to the first two, with a minimum of the third. Expansion ARR is the cheapest source of growth because the cost of attracting new ARR from an existing client is 5-7 times lower than from a new one.

Don't confuse ARR with GMV or total revenue. A SaaS company can have an ARR of 50 million rubles and a GMV of 200 million rubles if a significant part of the revenue is one-time. To assess the stability of a business, it is ARR that is calculated.