When I wrote the book, Snowflake had net dollar retention of 158 percent.
Think about what that means. If Snowflake had stopped selling to new customers entirely, its revenue would still have grown 58 percent the following year. That's the power of a customer base that grows on its own.
Most businesses aren't Snowflake. But every subscription business should know which way its existing customers are heading. This calculator tells you, and shows you the gross number that sits underneath.
How to use the NRR calculator
- Choose the period. Year is the honest version: take the customers you had 12 months ago and compare their MRR then and now. Month works too, and the calculator compounds it for twelve months so you can compare it with annual benchmarks.
- Enter the starting MRR from customers you had at the start.
- Enter expansion (upgrades, extra seats, add-ons, price rises), contraction (downgrades) and churned MRR, all from that same group.
- Pick who you sell to, so the result is compared with the right band.
Leave new customers out completely. Including them is the most common way NRR gets inflated.
How the maths works
NRR = (Starting MRR + Expansion − Contraction − Churned) ÷ Starting MRR GRR = (Starting MRR − Contraction − Churned) ÷ Starting MRR Annualized from monthly = Monthly rate ^ 12
GRR ignores upgrades, so it can never pass 100%. NRR can. Read them together: a big gap between the two means upgrades are hiding a churn problem.
A worked example
The calculator opens with a business on $50,000 of MRR. In one month, existing customers upgrade by $600, downgrade by $100 and cancel $300.
- Monthly NRR: ($50,000 + $600 − $100 − $300) ÷ $50,000 = 100.4%
- Monthly GRR: ($50,000 − $100 − $300) ÷ $50,000 = 99.2%
- Annualized: NRR about 104.9%, GRR about 90.8%
So the business loses about 9% of its revenue a year to churn and downgrades, and wins it back, plus a little more, through upgrades. That's close to the private B2B SaaS medians.
What good looks like
From our NRR benchmarks guide: SaaS Capital's 2025 survey of more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies found median NRR of 101% and median GRR of 91%. ChartMogul's 2025 billing data showed lower medians: 82% for B2B SaaS, 49% for consumer SaaS and 48% for AI-native products.
The rough bands the calculator uses:
| Who you sell to | Concerning | Solid | Excellent |
|---|---|---|---|
| B2B, $25k+ annual contracts | under 95% | 100–110% | over 115% |
| B2B, small business self-serve | under 80% | 90–100% | over 100% |
| Consumer subscriptions | falling year on year | stable | over 80% |
| AI-native, under $50 a month | under 30% | 40–60% | over 70% |
NRR matters because it drives growth. In SaaS Capital's 2025 data, companies with NRR above 130% grew at a median 50% a year, against 15% for companies below 90%.
What to do next
- Read the full guide to net revenue retention and its partner, gross revenue retention.
- Not sure which to report? GRR vs NRR explains when each one matters.
- Want NRR above 100%? Start with expansion revenue and the road to net negative churn.
- See what better retention does to your multiple in the Subscription Business Valuation Estimator.
Frequently asked questions
Can net revenue retention be over 100%?
Yes. NRR is over 100% when upgrades, extra seats, add-ons and price rises from existing customers add more revenue than you lose to downgrades and cancellations. That's called net negative churn. It means your customer base would grow even if you never signed another customer. GRR, by contrast, can never pass 100%, because it ignores expansion.
Should I calculate NRR monthly or annually?
Report it annually, track it monthly. Annual NRR is what investors, buyers and benchmarks use, so a 12-month cohort is the honest comparison. Monthly NRR is a useful early warning, but don't compare a monthly figure with an annual benchmark. A monthly NRR of 101% compounds to roughly 112.7% over a year.
Do price increases count in NRR?
Yes. A price rise on an existing customer is extra revenue from that customer, so it counts as expansion in NRR. It doesn't count in GRR, which excludes upsells, cross-sells and price rises. If price rises drive most of your NRR, say so when you report it. It's real money, but it isn't the same signal as customers choosing to buy more.
Do reactivated customers count in NRR?
Usually not. NRR measures the customers you had at the start of the period. A customer who canceled before that and came back is effectively a new customer, so their MRR belongs in new or reactivation MRR. A customer who canceled during the period and returned within it can be netted off. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently.
Built on The Subscription Playbook
This tool turns frameworks from Robert Coorey's book into something you can use in minutes. Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and a Director at BPAG Accountants. More about Robert.