What Is MRR?

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the predictable, normalized revenue a subscription business earns each month. It's the north-star metric for SaaS and subscription companies because it separates the steady, compounding base of subscription income from one-off payments — and it's the number that directly powers your runway, LTV, and growth projections. If you have 150 subscribers paying $29/month and 40 paying $99/month, MRR is (150 × $29) + (40 × $99) = $8,310.

How MRR Is Calculated

The key is normalizing everything to monthly. Annual subscribers count their monthly equivalent (annual price ÷ 12); multi-seat or usage plans normalize to a monthly figure too. This calculator handles multiple plans — add as many tiers as you need and it sums the contributions, showing each plan's share.

The Four MRR Movements

• New MRR — from brand-new customers this month
• Expansion MRR — from existing customers upgrading or adding seats
• Contraction MRR — from downgrades or reduced usage
• Churned MRR — from cancellations; tracked by your churn rate calculator

Net New MRR = New + Expansion − Contraction − Churned. Tracking all four tells you whether growth is driven by acquisition (new) or retention and expansion — and the latter is almost always more efficient and durable.

How to Use This Calculator

Add a row for each pricing plan, enter the monthly price and active subscriber count, and get total MRR, ARR, ARPU, and a plan-by-plan breakdown. Add more plans with the button. Use it to sanity-check your subscription data, model what a price increase does to MRR, or see the impact of upselling subscribers to higher tiers.

Worked Example

A SaaS with three plans: 150 subscribers at $29, 40 at $99, and 10 at $299. MRR = $4,350 + $3,960 + $2,990 = $11,300, ARR = $135,600. ARPU is $11,300 ÷ 200 = $56.50. The premium tier (10 subscribers) contributes 26% of MRR — moving 20 mid-tier subscribers to premium would add $4,000/month with zero new customer acquisition.

MRR and Your Metrics Chain

MRR feeds everything: divide it by subscribers for LTV inputs, track its monthly change rate for churn, divide into expenses for your burn multiple, and multiply by 12 for ARR — the valuation anchor most SaaS investors use. Pair this with the ARR calculator for annual projections and the SaaS pricing calculator to optimize the plan structure that drives the number.

What Drives MRR Growth

MRR grows through four channels: new customer acquisition (new MRR), upselling and expansion within existing accounts (expansion MRR), and is reduced by downgrades (contraction MRR) and cancellations (churned MRR). The most durable and efficient MRR growth comes from expansion — it requires no new customer acquisition cost and compounds as your subscriber base grows. A $1 ARPU improvement across 500 subscribers adds $500/month in MRR with zero additional sales spend, which is why ARPU is the metric to optimize once you have a base of customers to work with.

Operationally, MRR gives the finance team a real-time pulse on business health that quarterly or annual revenue reporting cannot. A month where new MRR of $8,000 was offset by $6,000 in churned MRR tells a very different story than a month where the same net $2,000 MRR gain came from pure expansion revenue with zero churn — the latter signals strong product-market fit and a retained customer base; the former signals an acquisition treadmill. This distinction between the quality and the quantity of MRR growth is one of the most important things the metric reveals when tracked carefully over time.

Frequently Asked Questions