CFO services for cybersecurity and infrastructure software.
Security and infrastructure platforms sell on trust, price on consumption, and run on cloud costs that scale with every customer. We bring finance leadership that tracks cost of revenue at the customer level, manages channel and procurement complexity, and reports the margin investors are pricing.
The finance problems that define this segment.
Consumption pricing makes revenue variable and cost of revenue direct.
Data ingested, endpoints protected, and events processed drive both revenue and cloud cost; margin must be tracked per customer.
Cloud cost is the gross-margin story.
Hosting, data storage, and compute can consume a third or more of revenue if unmanaged; commitments and reserved capacity are finance decisions.
Channel and marketplace sales carry margin and timing effects.
Distributors, resellers, managed service providers, and cloud marketplaces take margin and change billing and collection timing.
Security-driven procurement is slow and document-heavy.
Vendor security reviews, certifications, and compliance attestations gate sales and cost real money.
Multi-year enterprise contracts with ramps.
Committed-use contracts with ramped consumption create recognition and billing complexity.
Professional services and support tiers.
Deployment, tuning, and premium support are revenue lines with their own margin.
Customer concentration in enterprise segments.
A few large accounts can dominate consumption and revenue.
How we run finance here.
- Customer-level cost of revenue — cloud and infrastructure cost allocated by customer and product; contribution by customer.
- Cloud cost management — commitments, reserved capacity, unit cost per ingested unit, forecast tied to consumption.
- Consumption forecasting — customer usage models with ramp schedules and seasonality.
- Channel economics — margin, customer acquisition cost (CAC), retention, and collection timing by channel and marketplace.
- Revenue architecture — subscription, consumption, committed-use, services, support separated; multi-year ramps recognized correctly.
- Compliance and certification cost budgeting as cost of selling.
- Investor pack — annual recurring revenue (ARR) and consumption revenue, net revenue retention (NRR), gross margin with cloud cost, customer-level margin distribution, burn and runway.
- Pricing — consumption units, tiers, and commitments evaluated on margin and expansion.
Key metrics we build and report.
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| ARR vs. consumption revenue | Revenue quality |
| Gross margin with cloud and infrastructure in cost of revenue | True margin |
| Cloud cost per unit of consumption | Scalability |
| Contribution margin by customer | Where the margin is |
| Net revenue retention by segment | Expansion |
| Channel mix, margin, and days to cash by channel | Channel economics |
| Committed-use contracts and ramp schedules | Revenue visibility |
| Security review cycle time and cost | Cost of selling |
| Customer concentration | Revenue risk |
| Services and support margin | Secondary lines |
Worked example.
An observability platform with consumption pricing, $27M ARR equivalent, 60% through channel.
The plan: gross margin restated; negative-contribution customers repriced or re-tiered; cloud commitment program; channel collection terms renegotiated; concentration plan; consumption forecast with ramps.
Where we’ve done this.
Security and identity platforms; monitoring and observability products; backup and infrastructure management tools; managed service providers that were the channel; sponsor-backed security software platforms. Pattern-level only.
Why does cloud cost belong in gross margin?
Because it scales with revenue and investors treat it that way; margin reported without it is restated in diligence.
Should we commit to reserved cloud capacity?
We model consumption forecasts against commitment discounts and the risk of over-commitment before you sign.
How do we price consumption?
Units, tiers, and commitments evaluated on customer-level margin and expansion; we build the model and the guardrails.
How do you handle channel revenue?
Margin, CAC, retention, and collection timing by channel, with marketplace fees and reseller terms in the economics.
Further reading.
The Monthly Management Report for a Behavioral Health Group: What Belongs In It
The metrics, statements, and commentary a behavioral health practice's monthly report should contain, with a sample page-one — and the order that makes it useful to owners and boards.
Read article → InsightThe 13-Week Cash Forecast for a Behavioral Health Group
How to build and run a rolling 13-week cash forecast in a behavioral health practice — collections by payer, payroll timing, a worked example, and the decisions it makes possible.
Read article → InsightNegotiating Payer Contracts With Data: A Behavioral Health Playbook
How behavioral health groups should prepare for payer rate negotiations — cost per session, network need, quality data, alternatives, and a worked example of the business case.
Read article →Insights for this vertical.
SaaS-specific insights are being published.
Tell us about the company.
One conversation about where the numbers stand and what the next stage needs from finance. We will tell you where we can help, where you need someone else, and what it would cost.
The information on this page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute accounting, tax, legal, or investment advice. Revenue recognition, sales tax, and investor reporting matters for software companies depend on contract terms, jurisdiction, and the specific facts of the business. Figures in examples are illustrative. See our full Legal Disclaimer.