Following a significant year-over-year (YoY) deterioration in a key metric, Gitlab (GTLB) a DevOps platform, has changed how it calculates the metric. But the new methodology underpinning Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate remains a mystery as the company provided little detail on how the metric is now calculated.

In its latest quarterly filing, Gitlab said only that the new methodology was the result of changes made to its:

“...account hierarchy process for tracking customers.”

Not surprisingly, the new methodology resulted in a more impressive reported result.

Had the new methodology been used in previous quarters, Gitlab’s Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate would have:

—Increased to 129%, or 4.8% in the quarter ended July 31, 2023
—Increased to 130%, or 1.5% in the quarter ended April 30, 2023

The change comes after Gitlab reported a YoY decline in Dollar-Based Net Retention Rate of 14.47%.