Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a given period, excluding expansions (upsells, cross-sells). It reflects how well a company retains its customer base before factoring in growth from upgrades.
GRR is calculated by comparing starting recurring revenue from existing customers with the revenue retained from those same customers, after subtracting churn and downgrades.
Identify Starting MRR/ARR (revenue from existing customers at the beginning of the period).
Subtract Contraction Revenue (lost revenue from customers who downgraded).
Subtract Churned Revenue (revenue lost from customers who canceled).
Exclude Expansion Revenue (do not include upsells or cross-sells).
Divide Retained Revenue by Starting Revenue.
Multiply by 100 to get GRR%.
GRR (%) = (Starting Revenue – Contraction – Churn) ÷ Starting Revenue ×100
A GRR% of 80 and above is a strong benchmark for SaaS companies.
GRR excludes expansions; NRR includes them. NRR can exceed 100%, GRR cannot.
No, since it excludes upsells, the maximum GRR is 100%.
GRR shows the true retention strength of the customer base without being “inflated” by upsells.