GRR (Gross Revenue Retention)
GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) is the share of a cohort's recurring revenue retained after churn and contraction, with expansion excluded. It can never exceed 100%, which makes it the honest measure of how leaky the bucket is.
Formula
Worked example
A cohort starting at $150,000 MRR that loses $6,000 to churn and $1,500 to downgrades has GRR of 95% — regardless of how much expansion the same cohort generated.
NRR can hide a retention problem: heavy expansion from a few whales can hold NRR above 100% while dozens of customers quietly leave. GRR strips that out. Strong enterprise SaaS holds GRR above 90–95%; below 80% the core product is not sticking.
Diligence teams almost always ask for GRR alongside NRR for exactly this reason — present both, by segment, and the conversation goes faster.
Compute it: NRR calculator (computes GRR too)