Bessemer's bands are the ones boards use: 100 percent is good, 110 percent is better, 120 percent and above is best. But segment moves the goalposts hard. Enterprise SaaS is judged around 110 percent good and 130 percent great, land-and-expand mid market around 90 and 110, consumer SaaS around 55 and 80. So a consumer subscription at 85 percent is outperforming an enterprise product at 105. Know which benchmark you are being measured against before you agree to a target, and quote gross retention alongside it so nobody mistakes concentrated expansion for a healthy base.
4 hand-picked resources, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The good, better, best NRR bands (100, 110, 120 plus) that boards actually benchmark against, sitting alongside the efficiency metrics they get judged with.
From Bessemer Venture Partners by Kent Bennett, Talia Goldberg, Mike Droesch and others report
Open bvp.com →Why we picked it 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.
From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky 15 min read
Open lennysnewsletter.com →Why we picked it Kellogg's argument that churn has too many definitions to be trustworthy, and that private companies should measure NDR the way public ones do. The slides are the reference deck for this debate.
From Kellblog by Dave Kellogg 10 min read plus slides
Open kellblog.com →Why we picked it 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.
From Stripe 9 min read
Open stripe.com →How expansion, upsell and churn reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Grow & market, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Grow organically & retain, our D2C track.
