MRR & ARR Recurring Revenue Calculator

Yes, for the retainer portion of the book. Monthly retainers are recurring revenue in every way that matters for planning — predictable, cancellable, and expandable. Project work is not, and mixing the two into one number produces a figure that jumps around and cannot be forecast against. Track retainers as MRR and projects separately.

ARR is MRR multiplied by twelve. It is a convenience for annual planning and comparison, not a separate measurement. Where it misleads is with annual contracts paid up front — booking the whole amount as one month's MRR makes that month look extraordinary and the next eleven look broken.

New is revenue from a logo that was not paying you last month. Expansion is additional revenue from one that was — a scope increase, an added service line, a rate rise. The split matters because they come from completely different motions: new is acquisition, expansion is account management, and confusing them hides which one is failing.

Expansion minus churn, expressed against your starting base. At or above 100% your existing customers fund growth on their own; best-in-class SaaS runs 120% or better. For agencies, healthy annual retainer churn is under about 25%. It is worth caring about because expansion revenue costs a fraction of new revenue to win.

Churn is eating the new business, and it is doing it invisibly because the top line does not move. This is the single most common pattern we see. The answer is almost never more leads — it is qualification at the front and delivery in the first ninety days, because the retainers that leave usually decided to leave in month two.

Count it in MRR while it is still paying, but track it separately as at-risk. Otherwise the month it finally ends looks like a sudden collapse rather than something you saw coming a quarter earlier.