How Do I Calculate Net Revenue Retention (NRR)?

Direct Answer

Net Revenue Retention measures how much recurring revenue you keep and grow from existing customers over a period, after expansion, contraction, and churn. The formula is NRR = (Starting MRR + Expansion − Contraction − Churn) ÷ Starting MRR, expressed as a percentage, and it excludes any revenue from brand-new customers.

As a worked example, if you start a year with $1,000,000 MRR, add $250,000 in expansion (upsells and seat growth), lose $60,000 to downgrades, and lose $90,000 to churn, then NRR = ($1,000,000 + $250,000 − $60,000 − $90,000) ÷ $1,000,000 = $1,100,000 ÷ $1,000,000 = 110%. NRR above 100% means your existing base grows even with zero new logos, the hallmark of a strong product.

The 2027 benchmark is 100% as a floor, 110%+ as good, and 120%+ as best-in-class for B2B SaaS. Use net (not gross) retention to capture expansion, and never include new-customer revenue or you will overstate it. PULSE has a free [90-day revenue plan](/tools/90-day-revenue-plan) that helps you build the expansion motion NRR depends on.

The Top 10 Tools to Calculate Net Revenue Retention

These tools compute NRR or supply the MRR, expansion, and churn data behind it. Pricing is per user per month unless noted, billed annually.

1. ChartMogul 🏆 BEST OVERALL

ChartMogul treats net revenue retention as a core metric, computing it from billing data with expansion, contraction, and churn broken out. It connects to Stripe, Recurly, Chargebee, and others and segments NRR by cohort and plan.

Pricing starts free under $10K monthly revenue, then scales roughly $100–$500+/mo by revenue tier. Its retention and movement reports make every component of NRR visible.

It ranks first because NRR, GRR, and revenue movements are native and accurate without spreadsheet reconstruction. It fits any SaaS team tracking retention seriously.

2. Baremetrics

Baremetrics surfaces NRR, MRR movements, and churn directly from Stripe and similar billing systems. You see expansion versus contraction trends without manual work.

Plans run about $108/mo (Metrics) to $468/mo+ for larger revenue. The dashboards isolate upgrade, downgrade, and churn dollars.

It is best for early- and growth-stage teams that want retention metrics live within minutes.

3. ProfitWell (Paddle) 💎 BEST VALUE

ProfitWell Metrics reports NRR, churn, and revenue movements for free when connected to billing. The accuracy matches paid tools because it reads the same billing events.

Since the analytics product is free yet reports NRR reliably, it offers the best value of any tool here. Paddle monetizes billing and payments instead of metrics.

It is the value pick for any subscription business wanting real NRR math at no cost.

4. Recurly

Recurly owns the billing relationship, so its NRR and retention analytics are precise — it processes the very payments that move the number. Built-in churn management improves retention at the source.

Pricing is custom, typically from around $249/mo plus revenue-based fees. Revenue-movement reports separate expansion from contraction cleanly.

Choose it when you want billing and NRR analytics in one system.

5. Chargebee

Chargebee is a subscription billing and revenue platform with retention analytics, including NRR and expansion tracking. Its RevenueStory analytics module reports retention by segment.

Pricing scales from a free tier up through custom enterprise plans based on revenue. NRR and MRR movement dashboards are built in.

It fits teams that want billing, dunning, and retention analytics together.

6. Maxio (SaaSOptics)

Maxio combines subscription billing with financial analytics and reports NRR, GRR, and cohort retention for finance teams. It is built around investor-grade SaaS metrics.

Pricing is custom, typically a few thousand dollars per month depending on revenue. NRR is a headline metric in its dashboards.

It is best for finance-led teams that need audit-ready retention reporting.

7. HubSpot

HubSpot can compute NRR when MRR, expansion, and churn data live in the CRM, tying retention to customer success activity. Custom reports assemble the components against starting MRR.

Pricing is $15/user/mo (Starter), $90/user/mo (Professional), and about $150/user/mo (Enterprise). Lifecycle reporting connects NRR to the customer journey.

It fits teams that want NRR alongside sales and CS data in one CRM.

8. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce tracks renewals, upsells, and contractions, the raw movements NRR needs, especially with CPQ and revenue products. Reports roll these up against starting recurring revenue.

Pricing is $25/user/mo (Starter) to $330/user/mo (Unlimited). Account and renewal data feed an NRR model built in reports or a BI layer.

It is best for enterprise teams with complex contracts and renewal motions.

9. Tableau

Tableau models NRR by blending billing and CRM data into segmented retention dashboards. It computes the ratio across cohort, plan, and region.

Pricing is $15/user/mo (Viewer), $42/user/mo (Explorer), and $75/user/mo (Creator), billed annually. Creators build the NRR calculation for the org.

Pick it when NRR must be sliced finely for analytics and finance.

10. Power BI

Power BI builds NRR dashboards cheaply from Dynamics, Stripe exports, and Excel, ideal for Microsoft-stack companies. DAX measures handle the revenue-movement math.

Pricing is $14/user/mo (Pro) and $24/user/mo (Premium per user). The cost-to-power ratio suits finance teams well.

It fits RevOps and finance teams in the Microsoft ecosystem.

A Fully Worked NRR Example

Make every movement explicit. A company starts the year with $1,000,000 MRR across its existing base. Over the year that cohort generates $280,000 in expansion (seat growth, upsells to higher tiers, usage overages), loses $70,000 to contraction (downgrades and seat reductions), and loses $110,000 to full churn.

NRR = ($1,000,000 + $280,000 − $70,000 − $110,000) ÷ $1,000,000 = $1,100,000 ÷ $1,000,000 = 110%.

Compare that to gross revenue retention, which excludes expansion: GRR = ($1,000,000 − $70,000 − $110,000) ÷ $1,000,000 = $820,000 ÷ $1,000,000 = 82%. The 28-point gap between 110% NRR and 82% GRR is your expansion engine. A team can post strong NRR while masking a leaky bucket — here 18% of revenue is lost to churn and contraction, and only heavy expansion pushes net retention above 100%.

Reporting both numbers prevents expansion from hiding a retention problem.

Common NRR Mistakes to Avoid

• Including new-customer revenue. NRR measures only the cohort you had at the start of the period. Folding in new logos conflates acquisition with retention and overstates the metric.
• Reporting NRR without GRR. Net retention can look excellent while gross retention is weak. Without GRR you cannot see how much expansion is papering over churn.
• Choosing the wrong time window. Monthly NRR and annual NRR differ substantially because of compounding. Pick a consistent basis — trailing twelve months is standard for boards — and stick to it.
• Mixing logo and revenue movements. NRR is a revenue metric. Counting churned logos rather than churned dollars distorts it, since one large account can outweigh many small ones.
• Ignoring contraction. Teams often track churn and expansion but forget downgrades. Contraction is a real drag on NRR and a leading signal of accounts heading toward full churn.

How to Choose

• Use a billing-native tool (ChartMogul, Baremetrics, ProfitWell, Recurly, Chargebee, Maxio) for accurate NRR since it reads the actual revenue movements.
• Pick Maxio or a BI layer when you need finance- and investor-grade reporting with audit trails.
• Use your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) when NRR must tie to customer success activity and renewal motions.
• Report NRR and GRR together — gross retention shows your churn floor, net shows expansion power.
• Exclude new-customer revenue from NRR; including it inflates the number and hides retention problems.

How to Track NRR Over Time

NRR is most useful as a trend, so report it on a trailing-twelve-month basis to smooth seasonality and watch the direction quarter over quarter. Break it into its components on every report — expansion, contraction, and churn — because the same 110% can come from healthy expansion or from heavy upsell masking a serious churn problem.

Track NRR by cohort and by segment: enterprise accounts often expand strongly while SMB churns fast, and a blended figure hides both. Pair NRR with leading indicators like product engagement, support ticket trends, and renewal-stage health, since disengagement shows up months before a downgrade or cancellation.

When NRR slips, isolate whether the cause is more churn, more contraction, or less expansion, because each demands a different fix — retention work, packaging changes, or a stronger expansion motion. Boards typically want trailing-twelve-month net and gross retention side by side, while customer success teams want the live cohort and account-level views that let them intervene on at-risk accounts before the renewal date arrives.

A useful discipline is to set internal thresholds that trigger action: if NRR slips below 100% or GRR below 85%, treat it as a fire drill and trace the movement to its source. Because retention compounds, a two-point NRR decline that persists across several quarters quietly reshapes the growth curve, so the goal of tracking is to catch the drift early — when a handful of accounts are still saveable — rather than discovering it after a quarter of renewals has already lapsed.

FAQ

What is the difference between NRR and GRR? Net revenue retention includes expansion, so it can exceed 100%. Gross revenue retention excludes expansion and caps at 100%, showing only how much revenue you retain before any upsell.

What is a good NRR in 2027? Treat 100% as the floor, 110%+ as strong, and 120%+ as best-in-class for B2B SaaS. Best-in-class NRR means the existing base grows faster than it churns, even with no new logos.

Should NRR be measured monthly or annually? Report it on a trailing 12-month basis for boards to smooth seasonality, and track monthly for operational trends. Annual cohort views best reveal whether retention is improving.

Does NRR include new customers? No. NRR measures only the cohort of customers you had at the start of the period. Including new customers would conflate acquisition with retention and overstate the metric.

Bottom Line

Calculate NRR by adding expansion and subtracting contraction and churn from starting MRR, then dividing by starting MRR — and exclude new customers. ChartMogul is the Best Overall for native, segmentable NRR, while ProfitWell (Paddle) is the Best Value at free for accurate subscription retention.

Above 100% your base grows on its own, which is the strongest signal of product-market fit.

Sources

• ChartMogul net revenue retention documentation (chartmogul.com)
• Baremetrics and ProfitWell/Paddle metrics product pages
• Recurly, Chargebee, and Maxio (SaaSOptics) retention analytics documentation
• HubSpot and Salesforce pricing and reporting pages
• Tableau and Microsoft Power BI pricing pages
• Bessemer Cloud Index and OpenView SaaS benchmark reports on NRR
• SaaStr writing on net revenue retention benchmarks