"Churn" is one word for several different numbers, and reporting the wrong one makes a business look healthier or worse than it is. Here are the churn metrics that matter and exactly how to compute each.
Logo (customer) churn = customers lost ÷ customers at start of period. Revenue churn = MRR lost ÷ MRR at start of period. They diverge sharply when your customers vary in size. Lose ten $10 accounts and keep one $1,000 account, and your logo churn looks alarming while revenue churn is tiny. Report both, and know which one the question is really about.
Gross revenue churn counts only losses: (churned MRR + contraction MRR) ÷ starting MRR. It can never be negative. Net revenue churn nets in expansion: (churned + contraction − expansion) ÷ starting MRR. If your existing customers expand faster than others leave, net revenue churn goes negative — the holy grail, also expressed as net revenue retention above 100%.
Start the month at $10,000 MRR and 100 customers.
Logo churn = 3 ÷ 100 = 3%. Gross revenue churn = ($400 + $150) ÷ $10,000 = 5.5%. Net revenue churn = ($400 + $150 − $600) ÷ $10,000 = −0.5% — i.e. net revenue retention of 100.5%.
Don't multiply monthly churn by 12 — that overstates it because the base shrinks. To annualize, use 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12. At 3% monthly that's about 30.6% annual, not 36%.
The usual mistakes: blending logo and revenue churn, ignoring contraction, annualizing by ×12, and quietly excluding cohorts that churned hard. A dashboard that separates each measure and shows them side by side keeps you honest — and ready for the diligence question "what's your net revenue retention?"
The template we recommend computes logo churn, gross and net revenue churn, and net revenue retention from one pasted export, with the formulas shown so the numbers hold up under scrutiny.
Logo churn = customers lost ÷ starting customers. Revenue churn = MRR lost ÷ starting MRR. Gross revenue churn counts only losses; net revenue churn subtracts expansion and can go negative.
Logo churn counts accounts lost; revenue churn counts dollars lost. They diverge when customer sizes vary — losing many small accounts but keeping large ones gives high logo churn but low revenue churn.
Use 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12, not monthly × 12. At 3% monthly the correct annual figure is about 30.6%, because the customer base shrinks each month.
Page built 2026-06-14 from public, dated buying-intent signals. Updated as new signals land.