What is Gross MRR Churn Rate?
Gross MRR Churn Rate is the percentage of MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades in a period, without crediting any expansion or reactivation. It measures raw revenue loss — the total damage before any recovery.
Gross MRR Churn Rate is the loss-only counterpart to GRR: while GRR frames the result as “how much you kept,” Gross MRR Churn Rate frames it as “how much you lost.” The relationship is simple: GRR ≈ 100% − Gross MRR Churn Rate.
This metric isolates the severity of losses independent of your expansion engine. A company losing 5% of base revenue every month has a problem regardless of how much upsell offsets it.
The Gross MRR Churn Rate formula
| Variable | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Churn MRR | Revenue lost from customers who canceled entirely — excluding same-period signups who left, since they were never in the starting base |
| Contraction MRR | Revenue decrease from downgrades, reduced usage, or loss of one subscription when the customer has others |
| Starting MRR | Total MRR from existing customers at the beginning of the period |
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Benchmark My ChurnWorked example
July 2026: Your existing customers started the month at $50,000 MRR.
| Movement | Amount |
|---|---|
| 4 customers canceled fully | $3,200 |
| 1 same-period signup canceled (joined-and-churned) | $200 (excluded) |
| 2 customers downgraded plans | $600 |
| The $200 joined-and-churned MRR is subtracted from churn because it was never in the starting base. | |
7.2% of the starting MRR base was lost to cancellations and downgrades. This is the raw loss — it does not account for the $2,500 in upgrades and $800 in reactivation that partially offset it. The inverse confirms: GRR for the same period = 100% − 7.2% = 92.8%.
How it’s computed
Gross MRR Churn Rate uses the same state-comparison engine as GRR and NRR. It compares your subscription base at the start and end of each period, then sums the losses:
| Variable | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Reconstruct active subscriptions at period start and period end |
| Step 2 | For subscriptions that disappeared and the customer has no other active subs: sum their MRR as churn |
| Step 3 | For subscriptions that disappeared but the customer has other active subs: sum MRR as contraction |
| Step 4 | For subscriptions that exist at both timestamps with lower MRR: sum the negative delta as contraction |
| Step 5 | Scan for subscriptions created and canceled within the period — subtract their MRR from churn |
Why contraction is included
Gross MRR Churn Rate counts both churn (full cancellations) and contraction (downgrades). A customer going from $500/mo to $100/mo is $400 of lost revenue — ignoring it would understate the severity of losses. Both North Metric and ChartMogul include contraction. This is the industry standard.
The joined-and-churned adjustment
Subscriptions created and canceled within the same period are excluded from the churn numerator. Gross MRR Churn Rate is a cohort metric — it measures losses from the starting base. A subscription that was never in the starting MRR can’t “churn” from it.
The relationship to GRR
GRR and Gross MRR Churn Rate are two views of the same underlying losses. GRR = 100% − Gross MRR Churn Rate (approximately — GRR applies a 0-100% clamp, so in extreme edge cases the exact inverse doesn’t hold). If your GRR is 92.8%, your Gross MRR Churn Rate is 7.2%.
Cross-validation
Gross MRR Churn Rate has been cross-validated against ChartMogul across multiple months. Results: exact match or rounding-level agreement on 5 of 6 comparable months, with one month showing a 0.6 percentage point gap due to differences in how each tool reconstructs historical plan amounts — a common divergence between state-comparison and event-sourced architectures.
Gross vs Net MRR Churn Rate
Gross and Net MRR Churn Rate measure the same losses differently. Gross shows the raw damage; Net offsets it with expansion. Use both to understand whether your growth engine is covering your losses — and by how much.
| Gross MRR Churn Rate | Net MRR Churn Rate | |
|---|---|---|
| Includes expansion offset | No | Yes |
| Includes reactivation offset | No | Yes |
| Can go negative | No (only counts losses) | Yes (negative = net expansion) |
| Best outcome | 0% (no losses) | Deeply negative |
| Best for | Measuring the severity of losses | Measuring the overall revenue trend |
Gross tells you the damage. If Gross MRR Churn is 5%, you lost 5% of your base regardless of how much expansion you had.
Net tells you the outcome.A 5% Gross Churn with 8% expansion gives a −3% Net Churn — the base is growing despite the losses. But that 5% damage is still happening every month.
Common Gross MRR Churn Rate mistakes
- Netting expansion against losses. That’s Net MRR Churn Rate, not Gross. Gross deliberately excludes expansion to show the raw severity of losses.
- Excluding contraction. Downgrades are real revenue loss. A customer going from $500/mo to $100/mo should contribute $400 to your Gross MRR Churn Rate, not be ignored because they didn’t cancel.
- Including same-period signups in churn. A subscription that started and ended within the same month was never in the starting base. Including it inflates your churn rate with losses that aren’t real base erosion.
- Confusing it with Customer Churn Rate. Customer Churn counts the number of customers lost. Gross MRR Churn measures the revenue lost. A $5,000/mo enterprise customer canceling has 50x the MRR impact of a $100/mo customer, but both count as one customer churn.
SaaS Gross MRR Churn Rate benchmarks
Gross MRR Churn Rate benchmarks are segmented by MRR tier. Lower is better — top performers (25th percentile) lose less than 1% of base revenue monthly at most stages.
| MRR Tier | Range | Top 25% | Median | Bottom 25% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | < $10K | 1.1% | 1.8% | 2.9% |
| Early | $10K – $50K | 0.6% | 1.1% | 1.8% |
| Growth | $50K – $100K | 0.3% | 0.7% | 1.4% |
| Scale | $100K – $500K | 0.3% | 0.6% | 1.1% |
| Enterprise | $500K+ | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.9% |
| Gross MRR Churn Rate benchmarks from 1,400+ Stripe-verified SaaS companies. | ||||
Where does your Gross MRR Churn Rate rank?
Benchmark your Gross MRR Churn Rate against 1,400+ SaaS companies at your MRR stage.
Benchmark My SaaSFrequently asked questions
What is a good Gross MRR Churn Rate for SaaS?
Below 2% monthly is healthy for most SaaS companies. The median across stages ranges from roughly 0.5% to 1.8% monthly depending on company size — larger companies with stickier products tend to have lower gross churn. Above 5% monthly means your base is eroding rapidly and expansion alone may not sustainably cover it.
What’s the difference between Gross and Net MRR Churn Rate?
Gross MRR Churn Rate counts only losses (churn + contraction) and cannot go below zero. Net MRR Churn Rate offsets those losses with expansion and reactivation revenue, so it can go negative — which means your existing customers are growing your revenue despite the churn. Gross shows the damage; Net shows the outcome.
How is Gross MRR Churn Rate related to GRR?
They’re inverse views of the same data. GRR = 100% − Gross MRR Churn Rate (approximately). If your GRR is 95%, your Gross MRR Churn Rate is 5%. GRR frames the answer as “how much you kept”; Gross MRR Churn frames it as “how much you lost.” Use whichever framing resonates with your audience.
Does Gross MRR Churn Rate include downgrades?
Yes. Gross MRR Churn Rate includes both full cancellations (churn MRR) and downgrades (contraction MRR). This is the industry standard followed by North Metric and ChartMogul. Excluding downgrades would understate the true revenue impact — a customer going from $500/mo to $100/mo loses $400 even though they didn’t cancel.
Why does North Metric exclude same-period signups from churn MRR?
Gross MRR Churn Rate is a cohort metric — it measures losses from the starting MRR base. A subscription created and canceled within the same month was never part of the starting base, so including its MRR as churn would overstate base erosion. Both North Metric and ChartMogul follow this convention.
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