What is Net Revenue Retention (NRR)?

Net revenue retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue you keep from an existing group of customers over a period, after churn, downgrades and expansion, so a figure above 100% means that group grew without any new customers.

At a glance

• Also called net dollar retention (NDR).
• Formula: (starting recurring revenue + expansion − contraction − churn) ÷ starting recurring revenue.
• Only the starting group counts. Revenue from new customers never enters the formula.
• Benchmarkit’s 2025 B2B SaaS benchmarks put median NRR at 101%.
• NRR above 100% is the same thing as negative net churn.

How to calculate NRR

Take the ARR or MRR from the customers you had at the start of the period. A year later, measure what those same customers pay, including upgrades and extra seats and net of downgrades and cancellations. Divide the second number by the first.

Example (illustrative): your customers at the start of the year paid $1,000,000 in ARR. During the year they added $150,000 in upgrades and seats, cut $30,000 in downgrades, and $70,000 left with customers who cancelled. NRR is ($1,000,000 + $150,000 − $30,000 − $70,000) ÷ $1,000,000, or 105%.

What moves NRR

• Pricing that grows with the customer. Seats, usage or tiers give an account a way to pay more as it gets more value.
• Early value. Accounts that finish onboarding quickly are less likely to downgrade or leave at the first renewal.
• A second product. Cross-sell gives expansion somewhere to come from once seats stop growing.
• Who owns renewals. When nobody is accountable for a renewal date, contraction tends to show up as a surprise.

NRR benchmarks

Benchmarkit’s 2025 report, based on 2024 data from private B2B SaaS companies, found median NRR of 101%. It also found that expansion from existing customers made up 40% of all new ARR at the median, and more than half at companies above $50M ARR, so NRR carries more of the growth plan as a company gets bigger.

ChartMogul’s data shows how NRR and logo loss move together. Companies with NRR of 100% or more had a median monthly customer churn of 1.7%, against 7.3% for companies with NRR under 60%.

Common NRR mistakes

• Confusing it with GRR. Gross revenue retention leaves expansion out and can’t go above 100%. NRR includes expansion. Report both.
• Letting a few big accounts hide the rest. Strong expansion in three large customers can lift NRR while many small ones leave. Check logo churn next to it.
• Adding new customers to the end number. Anyone who signed during the period is out of scope, even if they’ve already expanded.
• Comparing against the wrong peers. Retention moves with contract size. Benchmarkit finds GRR rises as ACV rises, so compare against companies at a similar ACV.
• Mixing periods. Monthly and annual NRR aren’t interchangeable. Pick one, usually trailing 12 months, and keep it.

How NRR shows up in a revenue system

NRR is decided after the sale: how fast a new account gets value, how support issues get handled, and whether someone raises expansion when the account is ready. At AtoB, we run the customer-facing side alongside sales, covering support, collections, onboarding and QA. Read how the AtoB customer team runs.

Terms that sit next to NRR

NRR goes up with expansion MRR and expansion revenue, and down with churned MRR and churn rate. It’s usually reported on ARR, and higher NRR raises customer lifetime value.