Whether your base grows or shrinks,before you add a single new logo.
Net revenue retention is the one number that tells you if your existing customers are a growth engine or a leaking bucket. Enter your starting MRR and the three forces acting on it, and this calculator shows your NRR, your gross retention floor, and exactly where the money moved.
Your numbers
Monthly recurring revenue from your existing base at the start of the period.
New recurring revenue from upgrades, seats, and cross-sells to the same base.
Recurring revenue lost to downgrades and reduced seats (customers stayed, spend dropped).
Recurring revenue lost to customers who cancelled outright.
The verdict
Net revenue retention
98.0%
Gross revenue retention
88.0%
Net change from base
$-1,000
Ending MRR from base
$49,000
Existing base only — new customers excluded.
Where the base moved
NRR vs the 100% line
Below 100% your existing base is shrinking and new sales just fill the hole. Above 110% it compounds — revenue climbs even if you never close another deal.
Reverse-solve · hit a target NRR
Expansion needed
$11,000
Short by
$6,000
Holding contraction and churn fixed, a 110% NRR needs $11,000 of expansion — $6,000 more than your current $5,000. Every dollar you stop losing to churn or contraction is a dollar of expansion you no longer have to earn.
Compounding · where this NRR lands you
Same NRR, run forward
| Months out | Projected MRR from base | Growth from base |
|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | $47,060 | $-2,940 |
| 6 mo | $44,292 | $-5,708 |
| 12 mo | $39,236 | $-10,764 |
| 24 mo | $30,789 | $-19,211 |
This holds your 98.0% NRR steady and lets it compound on the existing base — no new customers added. That's the whole point of NRR: at below 100%, the base erodes every period, and you pay to acquire new logos just to stand still.
Your move
You've got the number. I find where the base is leaking.
NRR 98.0% (GRR 88.0%) on $50,000 starting MRR → $-1,000 net change from base.
Send me the cohorts behind this NRR. In the first 30 minutes I'll show you whether the leak is onboarding, packaging, or a missing expansion motion — and what I'd fix first to push it past 100%. Free, and you keep the plan whether you hire me or not.
Plain English
NRR measures the base. GRR measures the floor.
Net revenue retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue you keep from your existing customers over a period, after expansion, contraction, and churn — and before any new customers are counted. An NRR of 110% means your existing base grew 10% on its own, with zero new logos. An NRR of 90% means it shrank, and you have to win new business just to stand still.
It's the single most predictive number in a subscription business. A company at 120% NRR compounds: even if it never closes another deal, revenue keeps climbing. A company at 85% is running up a down escalator — new sales get eaten by the leak before they ever hit the top line. Investors price the two completely differently, because one is a flywheel and the other is a treadmill.
This calculator splits the truth in two. NRR includes expansion, so it can mask churn behind a few big upgrades. Gross revenue retention (GRR) strips expansion out and shows only what you lose — contraction plus churn against the base. GRR can never exceed 100%, and the gap between your NRR and GRR is exactly how hard your expansion motion is working to cover the leak.
The formula
NRR = (Starting MRR + Expansion − Contraction − Churn) ÷ Starting MRR × 100
Start at $50,000 MRR. Add $5,000 expansion, lose $2,000 to contraction and $4,000 to churn. NRR = (50,000 + 5,000 − 2,000 − 4,000) ÷ 50,000 = 49,000 ÷ 50,000 = 98%. GRR strips out the expansion: (50,000 − 2,000 − 4,000) ÷ 50,000 = 88%. Your base shrank 2% net, and even your best customers leaked 12% before expansion bailed you out.
What good NRR looks like
NRR climbs with deal size: bigger accounts have more room to expand and churn less, so enterprise routinely clears 100% while SMB tends to sit just under it. The overall private-SaaS median is about 106%, and 120%+ is best-in-class. Median NRR by segment, so you can see where you actually land:
| Segment | Median NRR |
|---|---|
| SMB SaaS | ~97% |
| Mid-market | ~108% |
| Enterprise | ~118% |
Source: SaaS Capital private SaaS retention benchmarks, 2025 · 2025
Your NRR came back under 100%. Now what?
Churn is the biggest line.
Customers are leaving, not shrinking. This is a value or onboarding problem, not a pricing one. Fix activation in the first 30 days and find why accounts go dark before renewal — that's where the bucket leaks fastest.
Contraction dominates, churn is low.
People are staying but spending less — seat reductions, downgrades, usage drops. Your packaging is too easy to shrink. Tie price to a value metric that grows with the customer, and make downgrades a conversation, not a self-serve button.
GRR is fine but NRR is flat.
You're retaining customers but not growing them. There's no expansion motion. Build deliberate upsell triggers — usage thresholds, new modules, seat expansion plays — instead of waiting for accounts to ask.
NRR looks okay only because of one whale.
A single big upgrade is hiding broad weakness in the rest of the base. Segment NRR by cohort and account size. Top-line NRR averages can lie; the median account is often churning while one logo masks it.
Eight ways to push NRR past 100%
01Nail the first 30 days
Most churn is decided in onboarding. An activated customer at day 30 renews; a confused one quietly leaves at month three. Retention starts before the renewal, not at it.
02Price on a value metric
Charge by something that grows with the customer — seats, usage, revenue processed. When your price expands as they succeed, expansion happens automatically instead of being sold.
03Build expansion triggers
Don't wait for upgrade requests. Watch for usage hitting plan limits, new team members, or new use cases, and reach out with the next tier at the moment of need.
04Make downgrades friction-ful
A one-click downgrade button is a contraction machine. Route shrink requests to a human who can re-sell value or offer a save — most are solvable.
05Run renewals early
Start the renewal conversation 90 days out, not the week before. Last-minute renewals get negotiated down or lost; planned ones expand.
06Catch churn signals early
Declining logins, support tickets, champion departures — these predict churn weeks ahead. Score accounts on health and intervene before they decide to leave.
07Layer cross-sell modules
Adjacent products and add-ons raise spend per account without acquiring anyone new. Every module a customer adopts deepens the cost of leaving.
08Fire bad-fit customers up front
Wrong-fit accounts churn no matter what you do and poison your NRR. Tighten qualification so the base you retain is one that can actually expand.
The vocabulary
- NRR
- Net revenue retention: revenue kept from existing customers including expansion, as a percentage of the starting base. Above 100% means the base grows itself.
- GRR
- Gross revenue retention: starting revenue minus contraction and churn, as a percentage. Excludes expansion, so it can never exceed 100% — your retention floor.
- Expansion MRR
- Additional recurring revenue from existing customers via upgrades, more seats, or cross-sells. The lever that pushes NRR above 100%.
- Contraction MRR
- Recurring revenue lost when customers stay but spend less — downgrades and seat reductions.
- Churned MRR
- Recurring revenue lost when customers cancel entirely. The hardest leak to recover.
- Net change
- Expansion minus contraction minus churn. The absolute dollar movement of your existing base over the period, before new sales.
NRR questions, straight answers
The overall median across private SaaS is about 106%, and anything above 100% is healthy — it means your existing customers grow on their own. By segment: SMB lands around 97%, mid-market near 108%, and enterprise near 118%, with best-in-class companies at 120% and up. Below 100% your base is shrinking and you're relying on new sales just to stay flat, which gets expensive fast.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.