ACV (annual contract value)
ACV, or annual contract value, is the average yearly revenue a single client contract is worth, used to size pipeline and forecast retainer revenue.
ACV normalizes deals of different lengths onto a one-year basis, so a three-year, $300,000 contract and a one-year, $100,000 contract both read as $100,000 ACV. This makes pipeline coverage and quota math comparable across deal shapes.
Agencies that mix project work and retainers often skip ACV and just track total contract value, which overstates the health of a small number of large, long-term deals and understates the volume of new logos actually needed.
Why it mattersWithout a consistent ACV figure, a founder cannot tell whether pipeline coverage is real or inflated by one long contract.
Related terms and practice.
Back to the full list.
Start with the founder-dependency audit.
Ten working days, fixed fee, a written read your team owns. The fee credits against the build that follows.