Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, counting churn and downgrades but excluding expansion — capped at 100%, it measures pure durability.
Gross Revenue Retention answers one narrow question: of the recurring revenue you started the period with, how much survived? The formula takes starting recurring revenue from an existing cohort, subtracts churn and downgrades, and divides by the starting figure — deliberately ignoring expansion. Because nothing can be added, GRR can never exceed 100 percent; it can only measure how little you lost.
That narrowness is the point. Net revenue retention can look excellent while hiding a leaky base, because heavy expansion from a few accounts can mask heavy churn everywhere else. GRR strips the mask off: it is the durability reading — how much customers keep paying for the product as-is — which is why investors and acquirers lean on it as a proxy for product-market strength. Teams typically read the pair together: GRR for whether the foundation holds, NRR for whether the base compounds.