Net Revenue Retention Calculator

What net revenue retention measures

Net revenue retention answers a simple question: if you signed up no new customers at all, would your recurring revenue grow or shrink? It takes a group of customers, looks at what they were paying at the start of a period, and follows that same group forward through upsells, downgrades, and cancellations. New logos are left out on purpose, because the point is to isolate the health of the base you already have.

The number matters because acquiring customers is expensive and slow, while expanding the ones you have is cheap and fast. A company above 100% is compounding: every renewal cycle the same customers are worth more, and new sales stack on top of a rising floor. A company below 100% is running up a down escalator, replacing lost revenue before any real growth begins.

How to calculate NRR

• NRR = (starting revenue + expansion − contraction − churn) ÷ starting revenue, shown as a percentage.
• Gross revenue retention (GRR) = (starting revenue − contraction − churn) ÷ starting revenue. Expansion is never added, so GRR caps at 100% and shows only the leak.
• The 100% line is the break-even point. Above it, the existing base grows on its own; below it, it shrinks.

The calculator above works out both retention numbers, shows your retained base and expansion against the line where you started, and tells you the gap to 100% or the cushion above it.

Reading your number

• Below 100%. The base is leaking faster than it expands. Every dollar of new sales first has to backfill the loss, so retention work usually pays off faster than more top-of-funnel spend.
• 100% to 110%. A healthy, self-sustaining base. Expansion is covering the churn and then some, which is where most durable SaaS wants to be.
• Above 120%. Best-in-class, and common among enterprise software with seat-based or usage-based expansion. The base alone can drive strong growth.
• Watch the gap between NRR and GRR. A high NRR resting on a weak GRR means expansion from a few accounts is masking heavy churn underneath. That is more fragile than the headline suggests.

If churn is the problem, the fix is usually in onboarding, product value, and account management rather than more leads. If expansion is thin, look at pricing, packaging, and how you land and expand. To connect retention to the wider picture, the Rule of 40 Calculator shows how growth and profit balance, and the LTV:CAC Calculator shows how retention lifts the lifetime value of every customer you acquire.

Frequently asked questions

What is net revenue retention (NRR)?

The share of recurring revenue you keep from an existing group of customers over a period, after expansion, contraction, and churn, before adding any new customers. Above 100% the group grew on its own; below 100% it shrank.

How do you calculate NRR?

Add expansion to the starting revenue, subtract contraction and churn, then divide by the starting revenue. New customers are never counted. Starting 100,000, plus 18,000 expansion, minus 4,000 contraction, minus 8,000 churn gives 106,000, or 106% NRR.

What is the difference between NRR and gross revenue retention?

Gross retention subtracts contraction and churn but never adds expansion, so it caps at 100% and shows only the leak. Net retention adds expansion back, so it can pass 100%. The gap between them tells you how much of your story is growth from existing accounts versus keeping what you had.

What is a good NRR for SaaS?

100% is the break-even line, 100% to 110% is solid, and best-in-class enterprise software often runs above 120%. Self-serve and SMB products usually sit lower because small customers churn more, so compare against similar companies.