
Penneo Annual report 2022 12
Management’s review Performance highlights
How we measure
our performance
SaaS terms explained
Penneo uses a range of SaaS metrics to evaluate its
performance. E.g. Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), ARR
churn, Net Retention Rate (NRR), Customer Acquisition
Cost (CAC) and Customer Life-Time Value (CLTV).
These metrics provide a picture of our potential ability
to generate revenue and cash ow in the future and
how eective we are in terms of gaining and keeping
customers. Some of the metrics we use to evaluate our
performance are described here.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Used to measure the recurring revenue from customers. ARR can
be measured in two ways: Live ARR and Contract ARR. Live ARR is the
recurring revenue currently being received, whereas Contract ARR also
includes the recurring revenue that a company has contracted to receive
from its customers, but not necessarily started receiving yet.
In Penneo, we calculate ARR as Live ARR since we prefer to present the
current status of our business. From 2019 and onwards, all new customers
in Penneo were onboarded to a fully subscription-based model. By the
end of 2022, 80% of the revenue was subscription-based compared to
75% at the end of 2021.
ARR churn
Refers to the decrease in ARR in a given time period due to the expiration of
a customer relationship. A low ARR churn rate indicates that a company’s
products have a strong market t and the price/value relationship is in
balance. In Penneo, we consider a churn rate below 5% as healthy.
Continuous high ARR growth rates
Development in ARR comes from three sources: (i) main-
taining low churn, (ii) securing upsell and cross sales to
existing customers, and (iii) attracting new customers
on existing and new markets. Penneo has signicant-
ly increased ARR each year since it was founded. From
2020 to 2021, Penneo increased ARR by 50% from 37M
DKK to 55M DKK, and in 2022, Penneo realized an ARR
of 71M DKK corresponding to a growth of 28%.
Low ARR churn rate
By providing a strong product t to our customers,
Penneo has maintained a low ARR churn rate of 2% and
4% for 2021 and 2022 respectively. Churned customers
primarily fall outside our strategic focus areas,
emphasizing the ‘stickiness’ of our software.
Signicant ARR uplift from existing customers
In absolute terms, Penneo increased uplift from
existing customers from DKK 6.3M in 2020 to 9.5M DKK
in 2021 and realized an uplift of 9.1M DKK in 2022. In
2022, the uplift was driven by two factors; (i) existing
customers increasing their usage of Penneo Sign and
upgrading their subscription, and (ii) existing Penneo
Sign customers subscribing to Penneo KYC.
New customers onboarded
Over the years, Penneo has been able to expand its
customer base signicantly. In 2021 for example, we
onboarded 530 new customers and in 2022, a total of
404 new customers were added.
ARR uplift
Used to measure growth from customers who became customers in a
previous period. In Penneo, ARR uplift comes from upgrading existing
subscriptions, e.g. a larger commitment from Penneo Sign customers or
upselling Penneo KYC to Sign customers.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
How much a company spends to acquire one new customer in a given
period. Overall, there are two types of CAC; Fully loaded CAC and Direct
CAC. Fully Loaded CAC includes all the costs associated with acquiring a
new customer, whereas Direct CAC includes only the direct costs.
In Penneo, we include compensation costs to reps in sales and marketing
who are directly involved in the sales process and also direct advertising
expenses. In other words, we use Direct CAC, since we believe it is the best
metric in a scaling phase where measuring the incremental investment in
one new customer makes sense. In the future, where overall protability
has a higher priority than growth, it makes sense to use Fully loaded CAC.
It’s important to note that CAC is a metric that should be tracked over
time, as the number of new customers can vary due to seasonality, selling
cycle and coincidental factors.
Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)
A metric used to measure the average yearly revenue generated from
each individual customer. Commonly used to measure the ability to
create uplift from customers.
Customer Life-Time Value (CLTV)
Highlights the long-term value of a customer relationship making it pos
-
sible to make informed decisions about pricing, customer acquisition, and
retention. Development in CLTV should be viewed alongside CAC to eva-
luate the protability in a scaling phase where cash ow often is negative.
Net Retention Rate (NRR)
Measures the retention of ARR from existing customers in a given time
period. NRR is calculated by subtracting ARR churn from ARR uplift. A
high NRR indicates that it might be protable in the long term to invest in
acquiring more customers in the short term even if CAC increases.