Gross revenue retention
Gross revenue retention is the share of last period's recurring revenue still billing this period from the same clients, before any upsell is counted. The formula is starting monthly revenue minus churned and downgraded revenue, divided by starting revenue. It cannot exceed 100%, which is what makes it the honest churn number.
Agencies report retention on client count, which hides the loss when a large account leaves and two small ones arrive. Revenue retention weights each departure by what it was worth.
Measure it on the same cohort each time. Adding this month's new clients to the denominator turns a retention figure into a growth figure and the churn disappears into it.
Covered in depth
Agency client churn rate benchmark: what is normal, what is a warning, and which churn you should be causing on purposeNot sure which of these is capping you?
Six questions, two minutes, and the diagnostic names the one constraint worth working on first.