Benchmarks

Benchmarks is a ChartMogul feature that shows how your revenue and retention metrics compare to more than 2,500 anonymized SaaS businesses. Overlay your own metrics to see where you stand against industry peers.

ChartMogul schedules Benchmarks updates at 7:00 UTC on the first day of each month. Use the reports to share a credible story about your company’s progress with your team, board and prospective investors.

Watch a video about using Benchmarks in ChartMogul:

Here’s what we cover in this article:

• Configuring your reports
• Time to reach milestone
• Recurring Revenue Growth Rate
• Customer Retention Rate
• Net Revenue Retention Rate
• Gross Revenue Retention Rate
• Frequently asked questions

What You Need to Know Before Using Benchmarks

Learn more about ChartMogul’s subscription metrics, including Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Annual Run Rate (ARR), Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA), Customer Retention, Net MRR Retention and Gross MRR Retention.

How to Configure Your Benchmark Reports

To access Benchmarks, choose Data Lab > Benchmarks from the main navigation.

For all reports:

• Toggle Show report labels to show or hide values in the reports.

• See how your business compares with Overlay your account metrics.

  

• To download Benchmarks as an image, click the Image icon on the top right. Choose All reports or select the report you’d like to share from the drop-down. Copy or download the image.

For Time to reach milestone, select the ARR amount from the drop-down.

With Overlay your account metrics switched on, use the First revenue date field to change the start date for your benchmark comparison. For example, to exclude a period when your product was still in the beta phase. By default, this is the first reported revenue date in your account. It’s not possible to set an earlier date. You’ll need to be an Owner, Admin or Staff in ChartMogul to use this feature.

For Recurring Revenue Growth Rate, Customer Retention Rate, Net Revenue Retention Rate and Gross Revenue Retention Rate configure the following:

• Select the range of historical data and measurement intervals you’d like to see by modifying the Show previous drop-downs. For example, Show previous 2 Years.
• By default, view benchmarks against all companies. Or, Benchmark against companies by their amount of ARPA or ARR.

Time to reach milestone

Track your ARR growth compared to SaaS business for the time to reach:

• $20M ARR
• $10M ARR
• $5M ARR
• $3M ARR
• $1M ARR
• $750K ARR
• $500K ARR
• $250K ARR

To view the time to reach a particular milestone, hover over the point on the report

Only 13% of startups reach $10 million ARR after 10 years in business — it’s challenging. Learn more in our SaaS Growth Report.

Recurring Revenue Growth Rate

The percentage of revenue you’ve retained from subscriptions that started in the previous year. It’s calculated as:

((Current Year’s MRR − Prior Year’s MRR) ÷ Prior Year’s MRR) × 100

Best-in-class SaaS businesses double their revenue each year. Learn more in our SaaS Growth Report.

Customer Retention Rate

Also known as logo retention, Customer Retention is the percentage of customers who continue to have an active subscription since starting it in the previous year. It’s calculated as:

((Starting Customers – Net Churned Customers) / Starting Customers) × 100

Use customer retention rate to understand how well your product/service is providing value to your customers and serving their needs. Companies with retention rates higher than 85% grow 1.5–3× faster. Learn more in our SaaS Retention Report.

Net Revenue Retention Rate

Also known as net dollar retention (NDR), Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the percentage of revenue retained (including expansion) from the previous year. It’s calculated as:

(Starting MRR + Expansion MRR − Contraction MRR − Churn MRR) ÷ Starting MRR

Tracking NRR over 12 months shows whether existing subscribers are growing their spend with you. For SaaS businesses, NRR ideally exceeds 100%. Learn more in our SaaS Retention Report.

Gross Revenue Retention Rate

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) is the percentage of revenue retained (excluding expansion) from the previous year. It’s calculated as:

(Starting MRR − Contraction MRR − Churn MRR) ÷ Starting MRR

NRR (Net Revenue Retention) includes expansion revenue from upsells and upgrades. GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) excludes expansion — so it shows only how well you hold onto existing revenue without any upsell contribution.

As your company’s revenue grows, the top and bottom quartiles of GRR should grow with it — indicating that your business serves the needs of customers in your market (product-market fit). Learn more in our SaaS Retention Report.

Frequently Asked Questions

I’m a ChartMogul customer, is my data contributing to Benchmarks?

All ChartMogul accounts contribute to Benchmarks, excluding internal test accounts and churned accounts whose data has been deleted.

Can I opt out of including my data in Benchmarks?

ChartMogul anonymizes all data before calculating Benchmarks. This usage of account data is accepted within ChartMogul’s Terms of Service.

Next steps

• Use targets to set a timeframe to reach a milestone.
• Customize your dashboards to keep an eye on your most important metrics.
• Project future outcomes of your business with Scenarios.