How do you underwrite contracted revenue vs. recurring revenue?
As we’ve been looking at recurring-revenue businesses, one question keeps coming up: where do you draw the line between contracted and truly recurring revenue?
A business might have 60-70% of revenue under annual contracts, but those contracts may not auto-renew. On the other hand, some “contracted” customers have renewed for 5+ years and behave almost exactly like recurring revenue.
During diligence, how do you look at this?
Is there a percentage of contracted revenue that gives you comfort? And how much weight do you give to historical renewal behavior when deciding whether contracted revenue is truly recurring?
Curious how other searchers underwrite this.