Net Revenue Retention vs Gross Revenue Retention: What's the Difference?

Gross revenue retention (GRR) measures how much recurring revenue is kept from existing customers after accounting only for churn and downgrades - excluding any revenue gained from upsells, cross-sells, or expansion, which caps GRR at a maximum of 100%.

Net revenue retention (NRR) measures the same existing-customer revenue but includes expansion - upsells, cross-sells, and price increases - alongside contraction from churn and downgrades, which means NRR can exceed 100% if expansion revenue outpaces what's lost.

The two answer different questions about the same customer base, and reading only one risks missing something important. GRR reveals the underlying stability of the revenue base on its own terms: because it excludes expansion entirely, a declining GRR means customers are genuinely churning or downgrading, and no amount of upselling elsewhere can disguise that in this particular number. NRR reveals whether the existing customer base, taken as a whole, is a source of growth or shrinkage - a company can report a strong NRR above 100% purely because a small number of large accounts are expanding fast enough to outweigh churn happening everywhere else, even while GRR shows real erosion underneath. The industry pattern reflects this: healthy SaaS companies typically post an NRR modestly above 100% alongside a GRR in the low 90s, and it's the combination, not either figure in isolation, that shows whether growth is broad-based or dependent on a shrinking core propped up by a few expanding accounts.