The headline figure: Planet Labs reported backlog of $527.0 million as of April 30, 2025, in its quarterly report, up from $503.7 million in the comparative period. For an earth-observation business selling multi-year imagery subscriptions, backlog is the clearest forward-revenue signal — but Planet's own table is careful to qualify it.
The asterisk is the cancelable line. In the same disclosure, Planet reconciles backlog to remaining performance obligations and breaks out a cancelable amount of contract value — $75.1 million against $90.9 million in the comparative period. That means a slice of the stated backlog is not firmly committed; customers retain the right to terminate it. Read net of that line, the durably committed backlog is smaller than the $527 million headline.
This is exactly the discipline a backlog table demands. Backlog is forward revenue, not guaranteed revenue, and a company that volunteers a cancelable figure is telling you precisely how much of the order book to discount. Planet's later filings — its annual report and most recent 10-Q — continue to reconcile backlog to remaining performance obligations in the same structured way, which is good disclosure hygiene and a gift to anyone doing the math.
The read for a markets desk: take the $527 million, subtract the cancelable contract value, and you have the harder number that should anchor a forward-revenue estimate. The headline is real; the committed core is what converts. Primary filing on sec.gov, indexed by EdgarBeast.