metricaas

Retention and churn

How much of your customer base and revenue you keep over time.

3 terms

Illustration of churn: a bucket of subscribers with small leaks representing customers and revenue slipping away.

Churn

Churn is the loss of customers or revenue in a period. In a SaaS, it measures how many customers cancel (customer churn) or how much recurring revenue disappears (revenue churn). It is the metric that reveals whether growth is sustainable: the higher the churn, the more new sales you need just to avoid shrinking.

Illustration of net revenue retention: a customer base that grows on its own with a compounding expansion arrow.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) measures how much of the recurring revenue from your current base you keep over time, already accounting for upgrades and expansion, minus downgrades and cancellations. Above 100% it means the base grows on its own, even without new customers.

Illustration of gross revenue retention: a customer base that leaks through contraction and churn, capped at the 100% line.

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) measures how much of the recurring revenue from your current base you keep over time counting only the losses, contraction and cancellations, and ignoring any expansion. That is why it never goes above 100%: it shows the pure leakage of the base.