I'mBoard API Docs

Year-over-year percentage growth in ARR (or recognized revenue, if explicitly anchored) — comparing the current period to the equivalent period 12 months prior. The single most-watched investor metric and the largest single driver of SaaS valuation multiples. Common pitfall: comparing to the prior quarter (QoQ) and reporting it as "growth rate" — boards and investors mean YoY unless explicitly noted otherwise. Anchored to KBCM/Sapphire SaaS Survey 2024 §YoY ARR Growth for cross-company benchmarking. — Sales KPI anchored to KBCM/Sapphire SaaS Survey 2024 (15th Annual).

Rogue ID: sales.growth_rate_yoy Type: Percentage (%) Domain: Sales

Definition

Formula

YoY Growth Rate = ((ARR at period close − ARR 12 months prior) / ARR 12 months prior) × 100. State the underlying metric explicitly (ARR vs Recognized Revenue) — they diverge meaningfully for sub-scale businesses. For quarters, use end-of-quarter ARR vs end-of-same-quarter-prior-year.

Why it matters

Direct input to public-comparable valuation multiples (EV / NTM ARR multiples are sliced by growth band). Boards use it to triangulate stage-appropriate pace and to flag deceleration early.

How to interpret

Per KBCM/Sapphire SaaS Survey 2024 §YoY ARR Growth, median private-SaaS growth bands by ARR scale: $5–10M ARR median ~55–70%, $10–25M ARR ~40–55%, $25–50M ARR ~35–45%, $50M+ ARR ~25–35%. Growth decelerating > 30 percentage points YoY at any ARR scale is the most actionable board warning signal — usually requires either pipeline-coverage diagnosis or product-investment reallocation.

Calculation policy

How an AI agent should compute this KPI from messy company data. Free-text rules consumed at reasoning time — not a deterministic DSL. The most common ways to get this wrong are listed under Common miscomputations.

Inclusion rules

Numerator: ARR at period close (or Recognized Revenue at period close if explicitly anchored on revenue) minus the same metric exactly 12 months prior.
Denominator: the same metric 12 months prior.
For quarterly reporting, use end-of-quarter ARR vs end-of-same-quarter-prior-year (not start-of-period).
State the underlying metric explicitly in any output ("ARR YoY growth" or "Revenue YoY growth") — they diverge for sub-scale businesses.

Exclusion rules

Quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) growth — that's a different metric. "Growth rate" without qualifier means YoY by convention.
Monthly growth annualized via compounding — that's "run-rate growth", not YoY.
Inorganic ARR additions (acquisitions) — disclose separately as "ARR growth excluding M&A" alongside the headline.

Required inputs

Period-close ARR (or Recognized Revenue) for the current period.
Period-close ARR (or Recognized Revenue) exactly 12 months prior.
Acquisition / divestiture log within the trailing 12 months.

Data-source priority

Audited or reviewed period-close balances.
Internal closed-period ARR snapshots maintained for board reporting.

Edge cases

Acquisition mid-year: show two numbers — headline YoY (including acquired ARR from the acquisition date) and organic YoY (excluding). Boards read both.
Currency moves on multi-currency revenue: hold FX flat at one rate across both endpoints when revenue is multi-currency. Constant-currency growth is the comparable number.
Very small base 12 months prior (< $1M ARR): growth rate becomes mathematically unstable; report carefully or use absolute deltas alongside.
Calendar-shift (53-week years, fiscal-year change): pin the comparable period or disclose the adjustment.

Validation checks

Result is a percentage; can be negative (decline) but rarely > 200% for sub-scale companies in a single year.
Sit within stage-typical KBCM/Sapphire band for ARR scale — out-of-band growth (especially declines) requires investigation, not narration.
Cross-check ARR and Revenue growth rates: if they diverge by > 30 percentage points, ask why — usually a contract-mix shift or billing-policy change.

Common miscomputations

Computing QoQ growth and labeling it "growth rate" — investors interpret unqualified growth rate as YoY.
Mixing ARR for numerator and Recognized Revenue for denominator (or vice versa) — produces a meaningless ratio.
Including acquired ARR in the headline growth rate without flagging the inorganic contribution — investors see "rocket growth" that is mostly M&A.
Using start-of-period vs end-of-period inconsistently (period-start one year vs period-end the other) — produces a 1-period offset that distorts the rate.
Annualizing a monthly delta and reporting it as YoY — overstates dramatically for any company with seasonality.
Computing growth on a metric that itself changed definition mid-trend (e.g. swapped MRR×12 to true contracted ARR) — usually inflates the growth rate by the methodology change.

sales.arr
sales.new_business
sales.expansion
sales.churn_arr
operations.rule_of_40
sales.gross_margin

Source

KBCM/Sapphire SaaS Survey 2024 (15th Annual) · section: YoY ARR Growth — published 2024-09-01.

Why does this cite KBCM/Sapphire SaaS Survey 2024 (15th Annual)? Read the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system, attribution rules, and dispute process.