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Net Revenue Retention (NRR) Calculator

Calculate what percentage of recurring revenue you retained from existing customers, including expansion and contraction, excluding new customer revenue.

Result

Net Revenue Retention
100%
Ending MRR from Existing Customers
$100,000
Rating
Healthy (growing without new customers)

About the Net Revenue Retention

This calculator measures what percentage of recurring revenue from existing customers was retained over a period, factoring in expansion (upsells), contraction (downgrades), and churn (cancellations), while deliberately excluding revenue from new customers. It is built for SaaS finance and revenue teams who want to isolate how well the existing customer base is being retained and grown, separate from new sales.

How It Works

You enter Starting MRR from existing customers, Expansion MRR from upsells or upgrades, Contraction MRR from downgrades, and Churned MRR from cancellations. The calculator adds expansion to the starting figure and subtracts contraction and churn to get an ending MRR figure for that same customer cohort, then divides ending by starting MRR to produce the Net Revenue Retention percentage.

Ending MRR = Starting MRR + Expansion MRR - Contraction MRR - Churned MRR; NRR = (Ending MRR / Starting MRR) x 100

Formula & Methodology

Begin with the MRR generated by your existing customer base at the start of the period. Add any MRR gained from that same cohort upgrading or buying more (expansion), then subtract MRR lost from customers downgrading (contraction) and MRR lost from customers canceling entirely (churn). This gives the ending MRR for exactly the same set of customers you started with, no new customers included. Divide that ending figure by the starting figure and multiply by 100 to get NRR as a percentage. The calculator labels 120% or higher as Excellent (a top-tier SaaS benchmark), 100-119% as Healthy (growing without new customers), and anything below 100% as shrinking without new sales.

Examples

Healthy retention with net expansion

Starting MRR of $100,000, with $8,000 in expansion, $3,000 in contraction, and $5,000 in churn. Ending MRR = $100,000 + $8,000 - $3,000 - $5,000 = $100,000. NRR = ($100,000 / $100,000) x 100 = 100.0%, rated Healthy.

Strong expansion pushing NRR above 100%

Starting MRR of $200,000, with $40,000 in expansion, $5,000 in contraction, and $10,000 in churn. Ending MRR = $200,000 + $40,000 - $5,000 - $10,000 = $225,000. NRR = ($225,000 / $200,000) x 100 = 112.5%, rated Healthy and approaching the Excellent threshold.

Advantages

  • Isolates the performance of the existing customer base from new sales, giving a cleaner read on retention and expansion dynamics than total revenue growth alone
  • Breaks the calculation into its component parts (expansion, contraction, churn) so you can see which factor is driving the final percentage
  • Applies fixed, commonly referenced SaaS benchmark bands (120%+ Excellent, 100%+ Healthy) so the result comes with immediate context

Common Mistakes

  • Including new customer MRR in the starting or ending figures, which defeats the purpose of a metric specifically designed to exclude new sales
  • Confusing NRR with gross revenue retention, which excludes expansion entirely and therefore can never exceed 100%, unlike NRR
  • Using inconsistent period boundaries for the four inputs (for example, starting MRR from one month and churn figures from a different month), which produces a distorted ending MRR

Edge Cases to Watch For

  • Starting MRR must be greater than zero; the calculator returns an error if it is zero or negative, since NRR is undefined without a positive revenue base to measure retention against.
  • NRR above 100% is possible and expected when expansion revenue exceeds the combined losses from contraction and churn, meaning the existing customer base is growing even with zero new customer sales.
  • The formula strictly excludes new customer MRR by design; entering new-customer revenue into any of the four fields would corrupt the metric, since NRR is meant to isolate existing-cohort performance only.
  • The result is only as accurate as how consistently expansion, contraction, and churn were categorized during the period. Revenue movements that don't cleanly fit one category (for example, a customer who downgrades one product but upgrades another) need a consistent internal rule for how they're recorded.

Common Use Cases

  • SaaS finance teams calculating a core metric for board decks, investor updates, or fundraising materials
  • Customer success leaders evaluating whether expansion efforts are offsetting the revenue lost to downgrades and cancellations
  • Revenue operations analysts segmenting NRR by cohort or customer segment to identify where retention is strongest or weakest
Written & fact-checked by the Calculateus TeamLast updated August 5, 2026How we verify our formulas

Frequently asked questions

Why does NRR exclude new customer revenue?

NRR is designed to isolate how well you retain and grow revenue from the customers you already have, separate from your ability to sell new logos - a company can have negative new sales in a quarter and still show a healthy business if NRR is above 100%, since expansion from existing accounts is offsetting churn and contraction.

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Conclusion

This calculator applies the standard existing-customer-only NRR formula to your entered figures, producing both the percentage and the underlying ending MRR dollar amount. Because NRR is sensitive to how expansion, contraction, and churn are categorized, consistent definitions period over period make the resulting trend meaningful.