Gross revenue retention

Definition

What last year's customers still pay this year before any upgrades, capped at one hundred percent.

Why It Matters

Net retention can look healthy while the base is leaking, because a handful of expanding accounts hides everyone shrinking or leaving. Gross retention cannot, since it only counts losses. Ask for both and treat the gap between them as a measure of how concentrated the growth is. Under a bank loan the distinction stops being academic: debt service is paid out of the revenue that stays, not the revenue that might expand.