Guide
Gross vs Net Revenue Churn: Leakage vs Expansion-Adjusted Loss
Gross revenue churn answers: how much recurring revenue did we lose from cancels and downgrades? Net revenue churn asks: after expansion from existing customers, did we still lose ground? The gap between them is your expansion engine — or its absence.
This guide stays at company-level subscription metrics. Logo vs MRR definitions are in revenue churn vs customer churn; step-by-step churn rate math is in how to calculate SaaS churn rate.
Last updated October 13, 2026
Gross revenue churn (gross MRR churn)
Gross revenue churn measures revenue leakage from your existing base before counting upsells, cross-sells, or seat expansion. It includes:
- Churned MRR — subscriptions that ended
- Contraction MRR — downgrades, seat reductions, plan moves to lower price
Gross MRR churn rate = (Churned MRR + Contraction MRR) ÷ MRR at start of periodSome teams report churned and contraction separately; gross combines both as pure “loss from the base.”
Net revenue churn
Net revenue churn subtracts expansion MRR from the same base from gross losses:
Net MRR churn rate = (Churned MRR + Contraction MRR − Expansion MRR) ÷ MRR at start of periodWhen expansion exceeds losses, net revenue churn turns negative (net negative churn). Logo churn may still be positive — pair with customer churn rate from the churn rate calculation guide.
When to report gross vs net
| View | Best for | Blind spot |
|---|---|---|
| Gross | Retention quality, board “leakage” narrative | Ignores expansion masking churn |
| Net | Growth from installed base, NRR-style thinking | Can hide logo churn if whales expand |
Relationship to net revenue retention (NRR)
NRR is typically expressed as retention above 100% rather than churn below zero. Conceptually, NRR and net churn describe the same base with expansion included. See net revenue retention (NRR) for cohort-fixed formulas. Stripe’s overview is a useful cross-check: net revenue retention.
Voluntary cancels vs full gross churn
Company gross churn includes every exit and downgrade in billing. Voluntary cancel-flow analysis isolates customers who completed your in-app cancel path — a subset used for product prioritization. Do not substitute flow exports for finance gross churn without reconciling to billing.
Methodology for flow data: customer churn analysis.
Weight cancel reasons by MRR
ChurnIntel shows voluntary cancel reason share by count and by lost MRR — complementary to company gross churn from billing.