Net Revenue Retention NRR (aka NDR, Net Dollar Retention)
How much recurring revenue a cohort of existing customers grows or shrinks over a year, before counting any new customers.
The fork, why two teams get different numbers
NRR is not GAAP and every SaaS company defines its own. The disputes: the
measurement window (trailing-12-month vs point-in-time snapshot); whether the
base is ARR or MRR-annualized; whether it's cohort-anchored (customers who
existed at the start) or a quarterly average; how currency movement is handled;
and whether downgrades that later re-upgrade net out within the window. A
company can post 118% NRR one way and 106% the other on identical customer
behavior, and both go in an investor deck.
The trap
NRR above 100% can completely mask severe logo/gross churn: a handful of big accounts expanding can carry a cohort past 100% while half the customers are leaving.
- The full trap, worked on a real export
- Every formula variant, spelled out
- The reconciliation anchor, what to tie it to and when to refuse
Reference: Non-GAAP operating metric, no authoritative standard; SEC MD&A guidance on defining key metrics consistently