The Briefing

A 32-month CAC payback in the $1M-$10M ARR band signals capital efficiency has become the new growth currency, particularly as private markets tighten and profitability trumps expansion at any cost. This threshold—nearly three years to recover customer acquisition spend—sets the stage for today's debate on whether SaaS metrics still hold in an AI-native world, where consumption models and inference costs scramble traditional unit economics. Kellogg's framework for rethinking go-to-market economics deserves attention here, as does the emerging benchmark data on agentic security systems, which promise to collapse both payback periods and operational overhead through automation. Watch whether enterprises treat AI tooling as efficiency plays or new revenue engines; the distinction will determine which metrics survive the transition.