Canonical Definitions
One definition for every term the GASP Standard uses. When a term turns up in several departments' metrics, the definition here is the one that counts.
Foundational Entities
Customer (Account, Organization)
A distinct billing entity with one or more subscriptions. The "who" of your business relationship.
Subscription (Contract, Agreement)
A billable agreement between a customer and your product, with defined terms, pricing and status. The "what and when" of the relationship.
License (Entitlement, Access, Quota)
A specific capability, quantity or configuration granted by a subscription. The "how much" of the relationship.
Hierarchy Principles
1. **Customers own subscriptions, not the reverse.** A customer churns when *all* their subscriptions end.
Revenue Terms
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
The total predictable revenue from active subscriptions, normalized to a monthly value.
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
MRR × 12. The annualized value of recurring revenue.
New MRR
MRR added from newly acquired customers in the period.
Expansion MRR
Additional MRR from existing customers (upgrades, add-ons, seat increases).
Churned MRR
MRR lost from customers who cancelled.
Contraction MRR
MRR reduction from existing customers who downgraded (but didn't churn).
Carry MRR
MRR from existing customers that renewed unchanged. No expansion, contraction or churn.
Net New MRR
The net change in MRR after all movements.
Revenue (GAAP)
Recognized revenue according to ASC 606 accounting standards.
Bookings
Total contract value signed in a period.
ACV (Annual Contract Value)
The annualized value of a contract, normalizing multi-year deals to a single year. When aggregated, represents average deal size on an annual basis.
ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account)
Average monthly recurring revenue per customer account.
Consumption Revenue
Revenue earned as customers use the product: consumption drawn from a prepaid balance, billed as overage above a commitment or billed on demand with no commitment.
Usage Run-Rate (Usage ARR)
On-demand consumption revenue over the trailing three months, annualised. Added to ARR it gives ARR Including Usage Run-Rate without counting any usage twice.
Prepaid Credit Balance (Remaining Commitment)
The prepaid commitment customers have paid for and not yet consumed or forfeited: the part of the deferred revenue balance that is prepaid consumption.
Credit Breakage
The prepaid balance forfeited at expiry in a period. The commercial fact behind breakage revenue, which the accounting standards recognise on their own timing.
Retention Terms
NRR (Net Revenue Retention)
Percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion, contraction and churn. Two methods are widely used: cohort method (preferred) and formula method. Recommended: trailing 12 months, annualized if using shorter periods.
GRR (Gross Revenue Retention)
Percentage of revenue retained from existing customers, excluding expansion. Cannot exceed 100%. Two methods are widely used: cohort method (preferred) and formula method.
Logo Churn Rate
Percentage of customers lost in a period.
Revenue Churn Rate
Percentage of MRR lost to churn and contraction in a period. Gross (losses only, not netted against expansion).
Renewal Rate
Percentage of contracts renewed at term.
Consumption Net Revenue Retention
The consumption revenue of the customers active at period start over twelve months, divided by the same customers' consumption revenue over the twelve months before. A second basis beside NRR, reported as Consumption NRR rather than as NRR.
Efficiency Terms
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
Total cost to acquire a new customer.
Marketing CAC
Marketing-only portion of CAC (excludes sales costs).
LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
Total profit expected from a customer over their lifetime. Calculated with gross margin.
LTV:CAC Ratio
Ratio of customer lifetime value to acquisition cost.
CAC Payback Period
Time required to recover customer acquisition cost.
Gross Margin
Revenue minus cost of goods sold, as percentage of revenue.
Rule of 40
ARR Growth Rate (YoY %) + EBITDA Margin (%).
Magic Number
Sales efficiency metric: QoQ ARR growth divided by prior quarter S&M spend.
Burn Multiple
Capital efficiency metric: Net burn divided by net new ARR. Popularized by David Sacks.
Customer Terms
Customer
An entity (company/account) with a paid subscription.
Active Customer
A customer in good standing at a point in time.
User
An individual person using the product within a customer account.
Trial
An account evaluating the product for free for a set period before it decides to pay.
Active User
A user who performed a qualifying action in the defined period.
Lead
A contact who has expressed interest (form fill, signup, etc.).
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
A lead meeting criteria indicating sales-readiness.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
An MQL accepted by sales as worth pursuing.
Opportunity
A qualified sales prospect in the pipeline.
Satisfaction Terms
NPS (Net Promoter Score)
% Promoters (9-10 rating) minus % Detractors (0-6 rating).
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)
Percentage of positive ratings on satisfaction survey.
CES (Customer Effort Score)
Average rating on ease of experience (typically 1-7 scale).
Health Score
Composite score predicting likelihood of retention or churn.
Time Terms
Period
A defined time interval for measurement. Always specify:
Cohort
A group of customers/users defined by a shared characteristic, typically signup date.
Trailing / Rolling
A period ending at the current date.
YoY (Year over Year)
Comparison to same period in prior year.
MoM (Month over Month)
Comparison to prior month.
QoQ (Quarter over Quarter)
Comparison to prior quarter.
Financial Terms
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)
Direct costs to deliver the product/service.
Operating Expenses (Opex)
Costs of running the business (excluding COGS).
EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Burn Rate
Net cash consumed per month.
Runway
Months until cash runs out at current burn rate.
DSO (Days Sales Outstanding)
Average days to collect payment after invoicing.
Bad Debt Rate
Percentage of revenue written off as uncollectable.
Reliability Terms
Uptime / Availability
Percentage of time service is operational.
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
Contractual commitment for service levels (uptime, response time, etc.).
Incident
An unplanned interruption or degradation of service.
MTTR (Mean Time to Resolve/Recover)
Average time from incident start to resolution.
Error Rate
Percentage of requests resulting in errors.
Pipeline Terms
Engagement Terms
Time-Based Metrics
Counting Conventions
Measurement Period Conventions
GASP Framework Terms
These terms describe the GASP Standard itself rather than the SaaS business concepts above: how metrics are classified, how events are captured, how access is scoped and how the twin is assembled. They appear in the MCP server output, the ontology, the adapter schema and the governance framework.
CEL (Commercial Event Ledger)
The atomic, immutable event layer from which the GASP revenue, retention and cost metrics derive. If a commercial event is not in the CEL, it does not exist for metric purposes. Operational metrics read the other datasets in the ontology.
ATL (Attribution Taxonomy Layer)
The tagging layer that classifies CEL events by lifecycle stage, expansion type and cost function. ATL tags let each dual-lens metric compute its Operating form and its Market form from the same events.
Adapter
The JSON mapping file that connects GASP's canonical vocabulary to your warehouse: a table for each GASP dataset you have, a column (`schema.table.column`) for each field and optional owners for field data and metric definitions. The adapter is the only file a consuming organization writes.
Digital Twin
The combination of the GASP standard (metrics, relationships, ontology), your adapter (warehouse mapping) and an MCP server (agent access layer). Together they form a read-only semantic model of how a SaaS business operates. Agents query the twin instead of the source systems.
Ontology
The structured representation of GASP's entities, concepts, fields, datasets, source categories, temporal semantics and validation rules. The ontology sits below the metric layer and provides the canonical vocabulary that adapters, queries and agents reference.
Signal Type
A classification that describes what kind of signal a metric provides. Every GASP metric has exactly one primary signal type; some carry a secondary.
Sensitivity Tier
GASP's recommended data sensitivity classification for each metric. Aligns with ISO 27001 and OSSA `data_classification` conventions.
Access Scope
GASP's recommended filtering pattern for each metric. Describes whether the metric is naturally filterable by user context.
Change Nature
Optional CEL field that captures the intent behind a revenue movement. Does not alter metric calculations. Enables downstream analysis of revenue quality (e.g. Adjusted NRR).
Segment
The customer classification by size, vertical or fit (SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise or the organisation's own scheme), recorded in the `segment` field. Revenue, contract and amendment events carry the segment as of the event; the customer and subscription snapshots carry it as of the snapshot. Segment is a dimension for slicing metrics rather than an ATL tag. Pricing tier lives on the plan.
Structured Formula
A decomposed representation of a metric's canonical formula, derived from formulas.json: explicit references to other metric nodes (with roles like numerator, denominator, addend) and the raw fields required. Enables agents to walk the dependency tree without parsing formula text.
Metric Owner
The named team or person responsible for a metric definition in an organization's adapter. The adapter schema recommends an owner for every metric you report and the validator lists metrics without one. When a metric value is disputed, the owner resolves the dispute. GASP provides the canonical definition; the owner decides whether their organization follows it or deviates and documents any deviation.
Temporal Semantics
GASP's structured description of a metric's time grain, aggregation method and reporting frequency. Each metric has a mapping (e.g. MRR = End-of-month snapshot, Daily sync).