Definition
What is Revenue Churn?
The percentage of recurring revenue lost in a period from cancellations and downgrades.
Revenue churn (gross MRR churn) measures lost dollars rather than lost accounts. It can diverge sharply from logo churn: losing one enterprise account can dwarf ten SMB cancellations. Tracking both separately matters because expansion revenue can mask account losses — net revenue churn can be negative (good) while logo churn quietly climbs.
Formula
Gross Revenue Churn (%) = MRR Lost in Period ÷ MRR at Start of Period × 100Example
Starting MRR of $100,000 with $3,500 lost to cancellations and downgrades = 3.5% monthly gross revenue churn.