Measure how much recurring revenue you keep and grow from existing customers. See your NRR, GRR, and whether your base compounds on its own.
MRR from existing customers at period start.
Upgrades, added seats, and usage growth.
Downgrades to lower tiers or fewer seats.
MRR fully lost from customers who left.
Where your retention lands against common SaaS thresholds, with what each band implies for growth.
| NRR Band | Rating | What It Means |
|---|
typical NRR
typical NRR
enterprise NRR
NRR is the percentage of recurring revenue you retain from existing customers over a period, after accounting for expansion, contraction, and churn. New-customer revenue is deliberately excluded so you're measuring the health of the base you already have.
Above 100% means your existing customers grow your revenue on their own. That compounding is why NRR is one of the metrics investors scrutinise most closely.
NRR = (Start + Expansion − Contraction − Churn) / Start × 100 Example: $100K start, +$15K expansion, −$5K contraction, −$8K churn:
GRR = (Start − Contraction − Churn) / Start × 100 NRR above 100% means expansion outweighs churn and contraction combined. Your revenue grows even if acquisition stops. Below 100% and you're acquiring just to replace what's leaking out.
GRR strips out expansion, so it can't hide a leaky bucket behind a few big upgrades. A high NRR with low GRR means your growth depends on a handful of expanding accounts while the rest churn.
NRR measures how much recurring revenue you keep and grow from your existing customers over a period, ignoring any revenue from new customers. It starts with your beginning MRR, adds expansion (upgrades, seats, usage), then subtracts contraction (downgrades) and churn. An NRR above 100% means your existing base is growing on its own, even before you sign anyone new.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) only counts what you lose: it subtracts contraction and churn from your starting MRR but never adds expansion. GRR is capped at 100%. NRR adds expansion back in, so it can exceed 100%. GRR tells you how leaky the bucket is; NRR tells you whether expansion is filling it faster than churn drains it.
Median SaaS NRR sits around 100-110%. Best-in-class companies, especially those selling to enterprise with usage-based or seat-based pricing, hit 120%+. SMB-focused products typically run lower, often 90-100%, because small customers churn more and expand less. Below 90% means your existing base is shrinking and you're forced to acquire just to stand still.
When NRR exceeds 100%, your revenue compounds without acquiring a single new customer. If you stopped all sales and marketing tomorrow, you'd still grow. Investors pay a premium for this because it signals product stickiness and pricing power, and it makes growth far cheaper since expansion costs less than acquisition.
Pull two levers: increase expansion or reduce churn and contraction. Expansion comes from usage-based pricing, seat growth, upsells to higher tiers, and cross-sells. Reducing churn comes from better onboarding, faster time-to-value, and catching at-risk accounts before renewal. Expansion usually moves NRR fastest because it has no upper bound.
Both have a place. Monthly NRR catches problems early and is useful for fast-moving self-serve products. Annual NRR is the standard reported metric and smooths out monthly noise, which matters for contract-based businesses where expansion and churn cluster around renewal dates. Be explicit about the period when you compare against benchmarks.
Calculators give you a snapshot. Mowt connects to Stripe and tracks NRR, GRR, expansion and churn automatically, so you see the trend before renewal season hits.
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