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Revenue growth rate is the most fundamental metric for any startup. It tells you not just how big you are today, but whether the business is accelerating, decelerating, or dying. Investors underwrite growth trajectory, not current revenue.
Month-over-Month vs Year-over-Year
MoM (Month-over-Month) growth is the fastest feedback loop — it shows whether last month's initiatives worked. But MoM is noisy. A single large deal, a seasonal spike, or a one-time discount can distort it. Use a 3-month rolling average for smoother signal.
YoY (Year-over-Year) growth removes seasonality and shows the underlying business trend. It's the primary metric investors use when evaluating growth-stage SaaS. Most SaaS companies aspire to 100%+ YoY growth in early years.
CAGR — smoothing lumpy growth
Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) shows the smoothed annualised growth over a multi-year period. If you grew from $100k to $800k ARR over 3 years, CAGR = (800k/100k)^(1/3) − 1 = 100% per year. It ignores volatility between periods.
T2D3 — the venture growth benchmark
T2D3 means: triple in year 2, triple in year 3, then double in years 4, 5, and 6. A company at $1M ARR following T2D3 reaches ~$96M ARR by year 6. This benchmark was popularized by Bessemer Venture Partners and is the standard against which growth-stage SaaS is measured.
Rule of 72
Divide 72 by your annual growth rate percentage to get approximate doubling time. Growing at 72% YoY? You'll roughly double in 1 year. Growing at 36% YoY? Double in 2 years. This works for any compounding metric — MRR, ARR, users, revenue.
Frequently asked questions
What does this calculator do? Calculate MoM, QoQ, and YoY revenue growth rates, CAGR, and time-to-double to benchmark your startup's trajectory.