Short answer
A Rollup property calculates the min, max, count, sum, average, earliest date or latest date of a property across associated records. Create a property, set Field type to Rollup, pick the rollup type, then the associated record type and property. Count counts associated records that have a value for the chosen property. Rollups need Professional or Enterprise.
1. The field type

2. The settings
In my demo portal, picking Rollup shows Rollup type (Min by default), Number format, and the associated record type. Nothing was saved.

3. Examples
- Company: count of open tickets, latest activity on renewal deals.
- Contact: number of associated deals in a pipeline.
- Combine with a calculation property for things like time since a rolled-up date. See calculation properties.