What is the difference between GRR and NRR?

GRR excludes expansion and so is capped at 100% — it measures only what you lost. NRR includes expansion and can exceed 100%. Reported together they distinguish healthy retention from expansion masking churn.

What is a good gross revenue retention rate?

Higher is better and 100% is the ceiling. As with NRR, published benchmarks vary so much by segment and definition that your own trend is the only comparison that carries information.

Why report GRR at all if you have NRR?

Because NRR alone cannot distinguish a business retaining everyone from one losing half its customers while a few expand heavily. GRR isolates the loss, which is the part you can act on directly.

Does GRR include downgrades?

Yes — contraction counts against GRR. That is the point: it captures every form of revenue loss from the existing base, whether the customer left or simply shrank.

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)

Revenue retained from an existing cohort excluding expansion. Caps at 100% and measures only what was lost.

The calculation

Take a cohort's revenue at the start of a period. Subtract churn and contraction from that cohort. Do not add expansion. Divide by the starting figure. Because expansion is excluded, the result cannot exceed 100%.

Why the pair matters

NRR and GRR answer different questions, and either alone is misleading.

Reading the two together

GRR	NRR	What it indicates
High	High	Healthy: little loss, real expansion
Low	High	Expansion masking substantial churn
High	Low	Retaining customers, no expansion motion
Low	Low	Both retention and expansion failing

Source: Interpretation stated here

The case that makes GRR necessary

A business losing a third of its customers while a handful expand aggressively can report NRR above 100%. That figure is arithmetically correct and describes a business in trouble. GRR is what makes the trouble visible.

Computing it defensibly

Fix the cohort explicitly and use the same cohort definition as your NRR, or the two are not comparable to each other.
Count contraction as loss, not as reduced expansion. Netting it against expansion is what turns GRR into NRR.
Segment by size band. A GRR dominated by small-customer churn calls for a different response than one driven by a single large loss.
Separate voluntary from involuntary loss. Failed payments are a billing fix, not a value problem.

Where it misleads

In annual-contract businesses only part of the base is renewal-eligible in any period, so a period GRR partly measures contract timing.
It treats all lost revenue as equivalent, so one large departure and many small ones look identical.
It says nothing about why revenue was retained — a customer locked into a multi-year contract counts the same as a delighted one.

RELATED TERMS

Churn

Customers or revenue lost over a period. The leak determining whether acquisition compounds or merely replaces.

Logo Retention

The proportion of customers retained by count rather than by value.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Revenue retained from an existing cohort over a period including expansion, expressed as a percentage of where that cohort started. The clearest single indicator of whether the base grows without new customers.

Renewal Rate

The proportion of contracts up for renewal in a period that actually renewed.

COMMON QUESTIONS

What is the difference between GRR and NRR?: GRR excludes expansion and so is capped at 100% — it measures only what you lost. NRR includes expansion and can exceed 100%. Reported together they distinguish healthy retention from expansion masking churn.
What is a good gross revenue retention rate?: Higher is better and 100% is the ceiling. As with NRR, published benchmarks vary so much by segment and definition that your own trend is the only comparison that carries information.
Why report GRR at all if you have NRR?: Because NRR alone cannot distinguish a business retaining everyone from one losing half its customers while a few expand heavily. GRR isolates the loss, which is the part you can act on directly.
Does GRR include downgrades?: Yes — contraction counts against GRR. That is the point: it captures every form of revenue loss from the existing base, whether the customer left or simply shrank.