Haris OdobasicA RevOps glossary defines the metrics, acronyms and system terms that revenue operations teams use to run marketing, sales and customer success as one process. This one covers 80 terms in six groups, from ARR and NRR to lead routing, GTM engineering and AI agents, each explained in one or two plain sentences with links to our deeper guides.
Agree these definitions with your teams before you build reports, because most arguments about RevOps numbers turn out to be arguments about definitions.
Revenue and retention metrics
Account Expansion (expansion revenue) is additional recurring revenue from existing customers through upselling, cross-selling, extra seats or higher usage.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the annualised value of recurring subscription revenue, excluding one-off fees such as implementation.
Average Contract Value (ACV) is the average annualised value of customer contracts, used as a measure of typical deal size.
Billings are the amount invoiced to customers in a period, whatever period the revenue belongs to.
Bookings are the total value of new contracts signed in a period, used as a growth indicator.
CAC Payback Period is the number of months it takes for the gross margin from a new customer to repay the cost of acquiring that customer.
Churn Rate measures the share of customers (logo churn) or recurring revenue (revenue churn) lost in a period.
Cross-selling means selling a different, complementary product to an existing customer.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing cost of winning new customers in a period, divided by the number of new customers won.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV) is the total revenue, or gross margin, you expect from a customer over the whole relationship.
Gross Margin is revenue minus cost of goods sold, divided by revenue, expressed as a percentage.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) is the share of starting recurring revenue from existing customers that you keep after contraction and churn, without counting expansion. It cannot exceed 100%.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the monthly value of recurring subscription revenue. ARR is usually MRR multiplied by 12.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the recurring revenue at the end of a period from the customers you had at the start, including expansion and after contraction and churn, divided by their starting recurring revenue. Above 100% means the existing base grows on its own.
Retention Rate is the share of customers kept over a period, a signal of satisfaction and loyalty.
Revenue Recognition covers the accounting rules that decide when revenue counts as earned. For subscriptions it is usually spread over the service period rather than recorded when the contract is signed or invoiced.
Rule of 40 is a SaaS benchmark which says that revenue growth rate plus profit margin should be at least 40%.
Total Contract Value (TCV) is the full value of a contract over its term, including recurring and one-time charges.
Upselling means moving a customer to a higher-value plan, edition or package than the one they first bought.
Pipeline, sales and forecasting
Deal Desk is a team or process that structures and approves complex or non-standard deals so they stay compliant and profitable.
Forecast Accuracy shows how closely a sales forecast matched what actually closed.
Forecast Category is a label such as pipeline, best case, commit or closed that groups opportunities by how confident the owner is that they will close in the period.
Pipeline Coverage is open pipeline value for a period divided by the quota for that period, expressed as a ratio such as 3:1.
Quota is the sales target for a rep or team, in revenue or units, for a given period.
Quota Attainment is the percentage of quota a rep or team actually closed in the period.
Sales Automation is software that automates repetitive sales tasks such as logging activities, sending sequences or creating follow-up tasks.
Sales Cycle Length is the average time from opportunity creation to closed-won.
Sales Enablement means giving sellers the information, content, training and tools they need to sell effectively.
Sales Forecasting is the practice of predicting sales or revenue for a future period so you can plan resources, hiring and spend.
Sales Pipeline is the set of open opportunities a sales team is working, organised by stage.
Sales Velocity describes how fast pipeline turns into revenue, usually calculated as number of opportunities × win rate × average deal size ÷ sales cycle length.
Territory Planning means dividing accounts, regions or segments among sellers so each has a fair and workable book of business.
Win Rate is the percentage of opportunities that end in a successful sale.
If your teams argue about these numbers instead of reading them off one dashboard, our GTM, RevOps and AI audit reviews strategy, process, stack and data, shows where the definitions and data break, and gives you a prioritised roadmap.
Marketing, leads and the funnel
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategy in which marketing and sales run personalised programmes together for a defined list of high-value accounts.
Account-Based Experience (ABX) is an extension of ABM that coordinates marketing, sales and customer success around target accounts across the whole customer lifecycle, not only acquisition.
Attribution means assigning credit for pipeline or revenue to the marketing and sales touches that came before it. Multi-touch models spread the credit across several touches.
Demand Generation covers the marketing programmes that create awareness of and interest in your product, building future pipeline.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a description of the companies that get the most value from your product and bring the most value to you, used to focus targeting and qualification.
Lead Conversion Rate is the percentage of leads that become customers, or that move to the next funnel stage, depending on the definition you agree.
Lead Routing is the set of rules that assign each new lead or account to the right owner, by territory, segment, existing account ownership or round robin.
Lead Scoring ranks leads by fit and engagement to estimate their value and how likely they are to buy.
Lifecycle Stage is a field that records where a contact or company sits in the customer journey, for example lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity or customer.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a lead that meets agreed marketing criteria for fit and engagement and is ready for sales follow-up.
Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy in which the product itself drives acquisition, conversion and expansion, often through a free plan or trial.
Product Qualified Lead (PQL) is a user or account qualified by product usage, such as a trial user reaching an activation milestone.
Qualified Lead is a prospect who is interested in your product and meets your criteria to become a customer.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a lead that sales has accepted as worth direct engagement, usually after qualification.
Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a commitment on service levels. In RevOps it also means the agreement between marketing and sales on how fast and how often leads are followed up.
Speed to Lead is the time between a prospect's inbound request and the first meaningful response from sales.
Teams, strategy and process
Customer Success is the function that makes sure customers reach the outcomes they bought the product for, which drives retention and expansion.
Go-To-Market Strategy (GTM) is the plan for how you reach target customers. It covers which segments, channels, pricing and sales motions you use, and how you win against the alternatives.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows how effectively you are reaching a key business objective.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a loyalty metric based on how likely customers are to recommend you, on a scale from 0 to 10.
Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the function that aligns marketing, sales and customer success on one process, one dataset and one set of metrics, so the company can grow revenue predictably.
Revenue Leak is revenue lost through a specific mechanism. We use four types, which are silent (buyer intent nobody sees), handoff (context lost between teams), value gap (the buyer cannot see the value) and velocity (deals moving slower than they should).
Sales Operations (Sales Ops) is the function that supports the sales team with territories, quotas, tools, reporting and process. RevOps extends the same work across marketing and customer success.
Systems and data
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) is software that configures products, applies pricing and discount rules, and generates quotes.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) is the system of record for accounts, contacts, opportunities and the activities around them.
Data Enrichment means adding missing information, such as firmographics, contact details or signals, to records from third-party sources.
Data Governance covers the policies, ownership and controls that keep data accurate, secure, compliant and trusted.
Data Hygiene is the ongoing practice of keeping CRM data accurate, complete and free of duplicates at the source.
Data Model is the structure of objects, fields and relationships in your CRM, which decides what questions it can answer.
Data Warehouse is a central analytics database that combines data from the CRM, billing, product and other systems.
Deduplication means finding and merging records that represent the same person or company.
Enrichment Waterfall means querying several data providers in sequence until one returns a value, so match rates do not depend on a single provider.
Integration (native, iPaaS) is a connection between systems. Native integrations are built by the software vendor, iPaaS (integration platform as a service) tools manage connectors between many apps, and workflow tools such as Zapier or Make automate simpler flows.
Quote-to-Cash is the process that runs from quote to signed contract, invoice and collected payment.
Reverse ETL syncs modelled data from the data warehouse back into operational tools such as the CRM.
Semantic Layer holds the governed definitions of metrics and dimensions, kept alongside the data models, so every tool, person and AI agent calculates the same number the same way.
System of Record is the one system whose value for a given fact is authoritative, for example billing for invoices or the CRM for account ownership.
AI and GTM engineering
Agentic Workflow is a workflow in which AI agents take steps, check results and hand over to people at defined points.
AI Agent is software that uses an AI model to plan and carry out tasks, such as researching an account, updating a record or drafting an email. Salesforce, for example, meters each agent action, such as a record update, in Flex Credits.
AI Readiness describes whether a team's data, processes and governance are good enough for AI to produce reliable results. In our RevOps in 2026 report, 73% of teams have an AI mandate and 38% have the data to support it.
Consumption-Based Pricing (credits) means pricing by usage instead of seats. CRM vendors now bill many AI features this way. HubSpot uses HubSpot Credits, and Salesforce uses Flex Credits, where a standard Agentforce action uses 20 credits.
Context Engineering means deciding what an AI agent knows when it works, such as the process, the definitions, what good looks like and where the authoritative data lives. Data shows what happened; context says what should happen.
GTM Engineer is a technical operator who builds the automations, data pipelines and AI workflows behind sales and marketing, such as enrichment, routing, signal-based outreach and CRM tooling.
Human in the Loop is a checkpoint where a person reviews or approves an AI output before it takes effect.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems such as data sources, tools and workflows.
Signal-Based Selling means prioritising accounts and outreach by live buying signals instead of static lists.
Signals (buying or intent signals) are events that suggest an account may be ready to buy, such as hiring, funding, website visits, product usage or content engagement.
Want your own definitions, data and processes checked against how your teams actually work? Start with our GTM, RevOps and AI audit.
Frequently asked questions about RevOps terms
What does RevOps stand for?
RevOps stands for revenue operations. It is the function that aligns marketing, sales and customer success on one process, one dataset and one set of metrics.
What is the difference between ARR and MRR?
MRR is monthly recurring revenue and ARR is annual recurring revenue; for subscriptions, ARR is usually MRR multiplied by 12. Both exclude one-off fees such as implementation.
What is the difference between NRR and GRR?
NRR includes expansion revenue from existing customers, while GRR does not. GRR shows only what you kept after churn and contraction, so it can never exceed 100%; NRR can, when expansion outweighs losses.
What is the difference between an MQL and an SQL?
An MQL meets marketing's criteria for fit and engagement; an SQL is a lead sales has accepted as worth direct engagement. The handover between the two is usually governed by a marketing-sales SLA.
What is the difference between bookings, billings and revenue?
Bookings are what customers signed, billings are what you invoiced and revenue is what you can recognise as earned. On a multi-year subscription the three can differ in every period, which is why each needs its own definition and source.
