Total revenue is the sum of initial, reinitial, rebill and bolton revenues minus refunds and chargebacks, for a particular period.
Total revenue is important as it tells you how much revenue you have generated, minus any refunds and chargebacks, as these get deducted from the incoming revenue total and therefore needs to be considered when calculating how much you can spend on acquiring traffic.
You can use total revenue to work out the total revenue per basic (TRPB) of a site. This will help you determine how much you can afford to spend per basic.
Total revenue per basic tells you how much revenue, on average, each basic member generates. It is an important metric to determine, for each site and/or source, as acquisition costs across these will vary.