Reference
Glossary
61+ SaaS sales terms, defined in plain English.
A
- ACV
- Annual Contract Value — the average annualized revenue of a customer contract, excluding one-time fees.
- AE
- Account Executive — the seller responsible for closing new business from discovery to signature.
- AM
- Account Manager — owns retention and expansion of existing customers post-sale.
- ARR
- Annual Recurring Revenue — the annualized value of all active subscription contracts.
- ASP
- Average Selling Price — mean deal size across closed-won opportunities in a period.
- Attainment
- Percentage of quota a rep has achieved in a given period. 100% means quota-hit.
B
- BANT
- Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline — a legacy qualification framework invented at IBM.
- BDR
- Business Development Rep — an outbound-focused SDR who prospects into cold accounts.
- Book of Business
- The set of accounts assigned to a rep, usually organized by territory or segment.
- Bookings
- Total contract value signed in a period, regardless of when revenue is recognized.
C
- CAC
- Customer Acquisition Cost — total sales + marketing spend divided by new customers acquired.
- Champion
- An internal buyer-side advocate with power and personal stake in your solution winning.
- Churn
- Customers or revenue lost in a period, expressed as a percentage of the starting base.
- Close Rate
- Percentage of opportunities that end in Closed-Won.
- Cold Call
- An unsolicited phone call to a prospect who hasn't previously engaged with your company.
- Commit
- In pipeline forecasting, deals a rep is committing to close in the current period.
- CRM
- Customer Relationship Management system — the system of record for accounts, contacts, and deals (e.g. Salesforce).
- CS / CSM
- Customer Success / Customer Success Manager — post-sale team focused on adoption and retention.
D
- DAU / MAU
- Daily / Monthly Active Users — engagement metrics for product-led growth motions.
- Deal Desk
- Internal team that reviews non-standard deal terms and pricing before contracts go out.
- Discovery
- The stage of a sales cycle focused on uncovering the buyer's pain and buying process.
- Downsell
- A customer renewing at a lower value than the previous contract.
E
- Economic Buyer
- The single stakeholder who has final authority to approve budget.
- Enterprise
- The customer segment for companies with 2,000+ employees; deals are larger, slower, and more complex.
- Expansion
- Additional revenue from existing customers via upsell, cross-sell, or seat growth.
F
- Forecast
- A rep or team's committed revenue prediction for the current quarter or month.
G
- GTM
- Go-to-Market — the combined strategy of sales, marketing, and CS to acquire customers.
I
- ICP
- Ideal Customer Profile — the firmographic and behavioral traits of your best-fit customer.
- Inbound
- Leads that come to you (demo requests, chats, form fills).
- InMail
- A paid LinkedIn message that can be sent to a prospect without a connection.
L
- LTV
- Lifetime Value — the total revenue expected from a customer over the life of the relationship.
M
- MAP
- Mutual Action Plan — a shared timeline of all steps from today to signature.
- MEDDIC
- Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion — enterprise qualification framework.
- MEDDPICC
- MEDDIC extended with Paper Process and Competition.
- MQL
- Marketing Qualified Lead — a lead that has met marketing's engagement threshold.
- MRR
- Monthly Recurring Revenue — the monthly equivalent of ARR.
N
- NRR
- Net Revenue Retention — expansion minus churn from existing customers; best-in-class SaaS >120%.
O
- Objection
- A concern raised by a buyer that must be addressed to move the deal forward.
- OTE
- On-Target Earnings — total compensation if you hit exactly 100% of quota.
- Outbound
- Sales activity initiated by the seller — cold call, cold email, LinkedIn outreach.
P
- PG
- Product-led Growth — a GTM motion where the product itself drives acquisition and expansion.
- Pipeline
- The total value of active opportunities across all stages.
- Pipeline Coverage
- Ratio of open pipeline to quota — 3–4× is typical for healthy coverage.
- POC
- Proof of Concept — a limited trial run to validate technical fit.
- Prospect
- A potential buyer who fits your ICP but has not yet become an opportunity.
Q
- Quota
- The revenue or activity target a rep is expected to hit in a period.
R
- Ramp
- The onboarding period before a rep is expected to hit full quota — usually 3–6 months.
- RevOps
- Revenue Operations — the team that runs sales tools, data, forecasting, and process.
S
- SAL
- Sales Accepted Lead — a lead the sales team has confirmed is worth pursuing.
- SDR
- Sales Development Rep — the prospecting role responsible for booking qualified meetings.
- SE
- Sales Engineer / Solutions Engineer — technical seller who handles demos and evaluations.
- Segment
- The customer bucket a rep sells to: SMB, Mid-Market, or Enterprise.
- SMB
- Small and Medium Business — usually companies under 200 employees.
- SPIN
- Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff — a discovery question framework by Neil Rackham.
- SQL
- Sales Qualified Lead — a lead the sales team has qualified as a real opportunity.
- Stage
- A defined phase of an opportunity in the CRM (e.g. Discovery, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation).
T
- TAM
- Total Addressable Market — the total revenue opportunity for your product if you captured 100% of it.
- Territory
- The set of accounts, geography, or vertical assigned to a rep.
U
- Upsell
- Selling a customer a more expensive edition or larger commitment.
V
- Velocity
- How fast opportunities move through the pipeline; often measured as ($ × win rate) / cycle length.
W
- Win Rate
- Percentage of opportunities that become Closed-Won.