What is net revenue retention and why does every investor keep asking me for it?
NRR is what happens to the revenue from one group of customers over a year, with no new logos counted: start with what they paid, subtract what churned, subtract downgrades, add upgrades and expansion. Above 100 percent means the customers you already have would grow your revenue even if you sold nothing new. That is why investors care. It is the single number that tells them whether your growth needs to be bought every year or whether it compounds. Enterprise SaaS is usually judged good around 110 percent, consumer SaaS much lower, so ask what benchmark you are being held to.
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The formula written out term by term, with the three performance bands. The right first read if you have been nodding along in NRR conversations without being sure of the calculation.
The benchmark study everyone quotes: good and great net revenue retention by business type, built from 20 growth experts plus real public company numbers. It stops the 'is 105 percent good' argument in one page.
The good, better, best NRR bands (100, 110, 120 plus) that boards actually benchmark against, sitting alongside the efficiency metrics they get judged with.
The cleanest definition of expansion MRR with the formula and the benchmark that matters: top companies get up to 40 percent of new ARR from existing customers.
This is the investor side of the desk explaining the calculation and then explaining what they are really testing for when they ask. It also shows how NRR can flatter a business, which is worth knowing before you quote yours.
