Bookings

The total value of contracts your customers commit to in a period — money promised, signed, and on the way, but not yet recognized as revenue.

In plain English

A booking is what happens the moment a customer signs. It captures the full value they've committed to over the life of the contract — before you've delivered any of the service or recognized a single euro of revenue. Bookings are a forward-looking measure of sales momentum: they tell you what your sales team closed this quarter and roughly what revenue is coming down the pipe. The catch is that bookings, revenue, and ARR are three different lenses on the same deal, and confusing them is one of the most common SaaS reporting mistakes. A booking is committed; revenue is what you've earned so far; ARR is the recurring run-rate. Get them straight and the financials suddenly make sense.

The formula

Bookings = total value of contracts signed in a period (committed, not yet recognized as revenue)

Bookings are recorded in full at signing — they reflect commitment, not delivery, which is why they can run far ahead of the revenue you actually report.

A worked example

This quarter your sales team closes 10 deals, each at an €12,000 annual contract value (ACV).

Bookings = 10 deals × €12,000 ACV = €120,000

You booked €120,000 this quarter. But if those are annual contracts, you'll recognize only about €10,000 of revenue per month as you deliver — and you'll count €120,000 of new ARR, the recurring run-rate. Same deals, three different numbers.

What's a good bookings number?

There's no universal "good" bookings figure — it scales with your business. What matters is understanding how bookings relate to revenue and ARR:

Measure	What it captures	When it's counted
Bookings	Committed contract value	At signing, in full
Revenue	Value earned so far	Recognized over time
ARR	Recurring run-rate	Annualized recurring slice

Treat bookings as a leading indicator of sales momentum, and watch how reliably they convert into recognized revenue and recurring ARR over the following quarters.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between bookings and revenue?

Bookings are the total value a customer commits to when they sign a contract, recorded the moment the deal closes. Revenue is recognized gradually as you deliver the service over the contract term. So a €120,000 annual contract is €120,000 of bookings today but only €10,000 of recognized revenue each month.

How are bookings different from ARR?

Bookings include the full committed value of a contract, including one-time fees and the entire multi-year term. ARR is the recurring run-rate only — the annualized value of the recurring portion. A three-year deal counts its whole value in bookings but only its annual recurring slice in ARR.

Is there a good bookings number to aim for?

There is no universal good bookings figure — it scales with the size of your business. Bookings are useful as a forward indicator of sales momentum and future revenue. What matters is the trend over time and how reliably bookings convert into recognized revenue and recurring ARR.

ARR · ACV (Annual Contract Value) · MRR · Net revenue retention

Learn more

The complete guide to value-based bidding · Value-based bidding without a data team