Net Revenue Retention
Acquiring new customers is expensive. Net Revenue Retention (NRR) tells you how well you're growing revenue from the customers you already have — and whether expansion is outpacing churn. An NRR above 100% means your existing customer base is growing on its own, even before you add a single new merchant.
Prerequisite
NRR requires your Partner API to be connected and synced.
How NRR is calculated
Ranksy computes NRR over the cohort of merchants who were paying subscribers at the start of the selected period:
NRR = (Starting MRR + Expansion MRR − Contraction MRR − Churned MRR) ÷ Starting MRR × 100
Where:
| Component | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starting MRR | Total MRR from paying subscribers on the first day of the period |
| Expansion MRR | MRR gained from upgrades by those same subscribers |
| Contraction MRR | MRR lost from downgrades by those same subscribers |
| Churned MRR | MRR lost from cancellations by those same subscribers |
NRR only tracks what happens to the starting cohort. New customers acquired during the period do not affect NRR — they'll appear in next period's starting cohort.
Reading the NRR number
| NRR | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| > 120% | World-class. Your existing customers are driving significant organic growth. |
| 100–120% | Healthy. Expansion more than covers churn; revenue grows from existing customers. |
| 90–100% | Caution. Churn slightly exceeds expansion; you need new customers just to stay flat. |
| < 90% | Decline. Existing-customer revenue is shrinking materially. Address churn and upsell motion first. |
What the NRR tab shows
Summary panel
The top of the NRR tab shows the headline NRR percentage alongside the four components (starting MRR, expansion, contraction, churned MRR) so you can see exactly what's driving the number.
Monthly trend chart
A time-series chart showing NRR month by month over the selected range. A trend line moving upward means your retention is improving — either churn is falling, expansion is growing, or both.
Plan breakdown
NRR decomposed by plan. A high-NRR plan is one where merchants upgrade and stay; a low-NRR plan has high churn relative to expansion. Plan-level NRR helps you prioritize where to invest in feature development and customer success.
Events timeline
Individual expansion, contraction, and churn events from the starting cohort, in chronological order. Useful for spotting whether a specific product change triggered a wave of upgrades or downgrades.
NRR vs gross churn
Gross churn tells you what you lost; NRR tells you the net result after accounting for what existing customers paid more. You can have a high gross churn rate and still have NRR above 100% if your power users expand significantly. Both numbers matter — the combination tells you the full story.
💡 If your NRR is > 100% but your logo churn is also high, you have a small cohort of high-paying power users offsetting many smaller-value churn events. That's a fragile position — those power users leaving would swing NRR sharply negative. Diversify your subscriber base.
FAQ
Q: Why does NRR look different from what I calculated in a spreadsheet? A: Confirm you're using the same starting cohort and date range. Ranksy uses exact subscription amounts normalized to monthly equivalents, which may differ slightly from rounded figures in a manual calculation.
Q: Can NRR exceed 200%? A: In principle yes, if expansion is very large. For most Shopify apps in the early stages, an NRR between 80% and 110% is typical.
Q: What does it mean if Expansion MRR = 0? A: No subscribers in the starting cohort upgraded during the period. This may mean your pricing tiers don't have compelling reasons to upgrade, or your customer success motion isn't surfacing upgrade opportunities.
Q: How does annual billing affect NRR? A: Annual subscription amounts are normalized to a monthly equivalent before being included in any NRR calculation.
Next steps
- Churn — the gross-churn side of the NRR story
- Subscriptions — per-plan MRR and subscriber count
- LTV — projected lifetime value based on churn and ARPA
- Revenue Overview — top-line context