Jan 14, 2021 · 37m · saastr
10 Rules for Defining Churn with ForgeRock and Solarwinds | SaaStr Software Community
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this SaaStr presentation, Tim from ForgeRock and Andrew from SolarWinds break down the foundational mechanics of SaaS retention, delivering a 10-rule framework and mathematical formula to accurately measure, categorize, and manage ARR and customer churn.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Jason holds 0.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 0.0 Guest disagreement 0.0 Jason pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 27:33 Andrea probing channel margin shifts
There is no genuine combativeness in this session; the most probing moment is Andrea asking Tim how to handle churn accounting when channel partner margins differ.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 37:03 Host wrap-up greetingThe host did not intervene during the presentation, offering only closing appreciation at the end of the session.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:35 Defining available-to-renew baselineTim and Andrea explain why available-to-renew churn provides a clearer picture of underlying business health than broad gross churn metrics.
Jason holds their own ▶ 37:03 Host closing remarksThe host was absent from technical discussions throughout the webinar presentation and only rejoined to conclude the session.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Selecting the Right Churn Metrics: Logo vs. ARR | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | This is a co-presentation delivered entirely by Tim Willey and Andrea Webb without host participation. The speakers collaboratively break down ARR versus logo churn and available-to-renew metrics in an agreeable, educational format. | |
| Renewal Timing Dynamics: Slippage, Pull-Ins, and Win-Backs | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Tim Willey and Andrea Webb discuss timing dynamics including early pull-ins, slippage, win-backs, and sales compensation alignment. The exchange is completely collaborative with zero host involvement or speaker friction. | |
| Non-Standard Renewals: Co-Terms, Re-Racks, and Shorter Terms | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The presenters examine non-standard contract scenarios like co-terminations, re-racks, and sub-12-month renewals during COVID-19. Both speakers build constructively on each other's enterprise examples. | |
| Nuanced Churn Scenarios: Product Swaps and Channel Shifts | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Tim and Andrea detail complex churn edge cases such as product swaps, account definitions, and channel partner margin shifts. Andrea prompts Tim on partner margin impact, which he answers analytically. | |
| ForgeRock's Working Formula and Summary of 10 Rules | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Tim Willey presents ForgeRock's explicit working formula for available-to-renew churn and summarizes the 10 rules. The segment concludes the structured slide deck with mutual alignment. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Willey: Logo churn often exceeds ARR churn due to small customer tail
“Larger customers tend to be a little bit more sticky than smaller customers. So what we've tend to found is that our customer churn rate is sometimes a little bit higher than our ARR churn rate because it has this longer tail of smaller customers.”
Willey: SaaS gross churn under 10% is good, under 5% fantastic
“Typically anything under about a 10% gross churn rate is pretty good. Anything under about a five percent gross churn rate is fantastic.”
Webb: SolarWinds uses normalized available to renew for perpetual license business
“In our perpetual business, we use the available to renew. And we normalize things like FS, FX impact and price increases because it's really important to me to ensure That we look at the picture of what's available to renew and what we're renewing against that…”
Willey: ForgeRock allows up to six months renewal slippage before forced churn
“Because we focus mostly on enterprise customers. We have this idea of allowing a renewal to slip up to a period of six months. Oftentimes the customers maybe are negotiating and there may be a significant upsell associated with the renewal that we haven't mana…”
Willey: ForgeRock matches early renewal churn to the original scheduled due period
“So if someone renews early and it has some churn associated with it, we wouldn't typically recognize that churn until the period in which the renewal was due, so we can kind of match apples with apples.”
Willey: Salesforce struggles to capture dynamic views of contract timing opportunities
“Unfortunately, Salesforce, isn't that good at kind of capturing dynamic views of these different types of opportunities”
Willey: Short-term contract extensions at full run-rate do not count as churn
“Even if the customer is just renewing for one extra month, as long as they're renewing at the full ARR value, there shouldn't be any churn.”
Willey: Requests for short contract extensions usually signal intent to churn
“Typically if customers are looking for something like that, it tends to mean that they're interested in moving off or moving to something else.”
Willey: ForgeRock treats contract reductions lasting over six months as formal churn
“How, how we typically look at it is if there's a temporary reduction for a short period of time, let's say within, within the six month period, as long as at the end of that period, the customer is, is effectively renewing the full amount and kind of go get, g…”
Webb: SolarWinds uses varied churn grace periods ranging from real-time to months
“In our case, we have different timing across different business units. One of our business units uses three months. One of our business units uses 30 days. And the other one is more of a real time whether we take, take churn on it or not, and then classify it …”
Willey: ForgeRock counts ARR losses from channel partner margin shifts as churn
“Typically we would look at the ARR value coming in from that customer through that, that channel. So if that ARR goes down because the margin changes, then we would take some kind of churn on that.”
Willey: Paying full commissions for flat account renewals breaks SaaS unit economics
“If they're not growing customer accounts, the economics, the customer acquisition costs, the lifetime value doesn't really stack up to pay the full commission on, on, on effectively just treading water.”
Willey: Available to renew churn is the best metric for renewals teams
“If you're running a renewals team, a customer success team, I think that's probably the best metric in terms of understanding performance and health of business.”
Willey: Lack of standardized SaaS churn accounting will face increasing industry scrutiny
“And unfortunately there isn't right now, you know, Gemini accept the counted principles for how to define churn. So I think it's going to be one of those things that as more and more businesses become cloud orientated, SAS orientated, ultimately customer succe…”