Expansion MRR Growth Rate
Date created: Feb 12, 2020 • Last updated: Feb 24, 2022
What is Expansion MRR Growth Rate?
Expansion Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Growth Rate is the velocity at which additional revenue from existing customers is being added to the business, expressed as a percentage of total MRR. Expansion MRR Growth Rate is often cited as a monthly rate, but it's also possible to express it using an annual timeframe, for example, "Our Expansion MRR Growth Rate for April was 5%" or "Our Expansion MRR Growth Rate was 80% last year".
Alternate names: Expansion MRR Rate, Expansion Revenue Growth RateExpansion MRR Growth Rate Formula
How to calculate Expansion MRR Growth Rate
A recurring revenue business has MRR of $500K at the beginning of the month. Throughout the month, the business realizes an additional $15K of Expansion MRR from its existing customers (via up-sells, cross-sells, and add-ons). Sum(Expansion MRR in period) / Sum(total MRR beginning of period) $15K / $500K = 3% Expansion MRR Growth Rate per month
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How to visualize Expansion MRR Growth Rate?
Growth Rates are best visualized with line charts. This lets you identify where your Expansion MRR Growth Rate has increased or decreased, allowing you to act on discrepancies.
Expansion MRR Growth Rate visualization example
Line Chart
Expansion MRR Growth Rate
Line Chart
Here's an example of how to visualize your Expansion MRR Growth Rate data in a line chart over time.More about Expansion MRR Growth Rate
There are several ways to express Expansion MRR, for example:
- I could say that we generated $8,000 in Expansion MRR last month (which would be the absolute value);
Expansion Revenue is a key growth metric and becomes more and more powerful as you grow your customer base. It's also vital to build expansion opportunities into your customer's buying journey, as this, and this alone, is essential to help you overcome the downward forces of Gross Churn.
It's well known that selling to existing customers is significantly less costly than acquiring new customers. KeyBanc's Annual SaaS survey concluded that cross-sells and add-ons cost about 1/4 of what $1 of new revenue costs, and natural plan expansions cost as little as 1/5 of what it costs to acquire a new customer.
This all impacts your CAC Payback Period - your time to profitability - which for any cash strapped startup is a key early survival tactic. And, of course, if you can increase the amount each customer is paying you, then Lifetime Value (LTV) increases as well.
The most efficient and fastest growing companies spend a lot of time understanding how to benefit from healthy Expansion MRR. Everything is easier when you can count on your customer base contributing to your top line. Best in class companies are achieving Expansion MRR Ratios that are 20% to 40% of top line revenue each month.