How to Calculate and Track MRR Growth Rate: The 2025 Guide for SaaS Founders
Learn how to calculate MRR growth rate accurately, track it across multiple Stripe accounts, and use growth metrics to make better business decisions in 2025.
How to Calculate and Track MRR Growth Rate: The 2025 Guide for SaaS Founders
Your MRR hit $12,000 last month. This month it's $13,200. Good news, right? But here's the question that separates successful founders from struggling ones: What's your actual growth rate, and is it sustainable?
MRR growth rate isn't just a vanity metric—it's the heartbeat of your SaaS business. It tells you whether you're building something scalable or just treading water. Yet most founders either calculate it wrong or don't track it consistently across their multiple products.
In this guide, you'll learn exactly how to calculate your MRR growth rate, what benchmarks to aim for, and how to track growth across multiple Stripe accounts without losing your mind.
Table of Contents
What is MRR Growth Rate and Why It Matters
MRR growth rate measures the percentage change in your monthly recurring revenue over a specific period. It's the single metric that tells you whether your SaaS is growing, stagnating, or shrinking.
Why founders obsess over this metric:Here's what makes MRR growth rate different from other metrics: it's forward-looking. While total MRR tells you where you are, growth rate tells you where you're going. A company with $10,000 MRR growing at 20% monthly is worth more than one with $50,000 MRR growing at 2%.
💡 Pro tip: Track both month-over-month (MoM) and year-over-year (YoY) growth rates. MoM shows recent momentum, while YoY smooths out seasonal variations and one-time spikes.
The problem? Most founders with multiple SaaS products struggle to calculate accurate growth rates because their revenue is fragmented across different Stripe accounts, payment processors, and spreadsheets. You can't optimize what you can't measure clearly.
How to Calculate MRR Growth Rate (Step-by-Step)
Let's break down the exact formula and walk through a real example.
The Basic Formula
MRR Growth Rate = [(Current MRR - Previous MRR) / Previous MRR] × 100Real Example Calculation
Imagine you're running two SaaS products:
Breaking Down the Components
Current MRR - Your total recurring revenue at the end of the measurement period. Include all active subscriptions but exclude one-time fees, setup charges, or usage-based overages.
Previous MRR - Your total recurring revenue at the start of the period. Use the same calculation method as current MRR for consistency.
Time Period - Typically month-over-month, but you can calculate weekly (for early-stage) or quarterly (for mature SaaS) growth rates.
⚠️ Warning: Don't cherry-pick your start date to make growth look better. Investors and acquirers will see through this immediately.
Quick Reference Table
| Scenario | Previous MRR | Current MRR | Growth Rate | |----------|--------------|-------------|-------------| | Strong Growth | $10,000 | $12,000 | +20.0% | | Steady Growth | $10,000 | $10,500 | +5.0% | | Flat | $10,000 | $10,000 | 0.0% | | Declining | $10,000 | $9,500 | -5.0% | | Rapid Decline | $10,000 | $8,000 | -20.0% |
Types of MRR Growth You Need to Track
Here's where most founders get it wrong: they only track net MRR growth. But to actually improve your growth rate, you need to understand the four components that drive it.
The Four Components of MRR Growth
Net New MRR = New MRR + Expansion MRR - Churned MRR - Contraction MRRReal-World Example Breakdown
Let's say your MRR grew from $15,000 to $16,500 (+$1,500):
This breakdown tells a completely different story than just "10% growth." You're acquiring customers well, but losing them almost as fast. Your focus should be on retention, not more acquisition.
✅ Best practice: Track these four components separately every month. Use a tool like MultiMMR to automatically categorize and visualize these metrics across all your Stripe accounts.
MRR Growth Rate Benchmarks for 2025
What's a "good" growth rate? It depends on your stage, market, and business model. Here are updated benchmarks based on 2025 SaaS data.
Growth Benchmarks by Stage
| Stage | MRR Range | Target MoM Growth | What's Realistic | |-------|-----------|-------------------|------------------| | Pre-seed | $0-$10K | 30-50% | High volatility, focus on finding PMF | | Seed | $10K-$50K | 15-25% | Proving repeatable acquisition | | Series A | $50K-$200K | 10-15% | Scaling what works | | Growth | $200K+ | 5-10% | Optimizing unit economics |
Context Matters More Than Numbers
Early-Stage (0-$10K MRR) - High percentage growth is easier but less meaningful. Going from $1K to $2K is 100% growth, but it's just one enterprise customer. Focus on consistent customer acquisition over percentage gains.
Mid-Stage ($10K-$100K MRR) - This is where growth rate becomes your primary metric. You should be hitting 10-20% monthly growth if you've found product-market fit. Below 5% means something's broken.
Mature Stage ($100K+ MRR) - Growth naturally slows as your base grows. 5-10% monthly is excellent. Focus shifts to profitability and net revenue retention over raw growth.
💡 Pro tip: Compare your growth rate to your churn rate. If you're growing at 10% but churning 8%, you're on a treadmill. Sustainable growth requires your growth rate to exceed churn by at least 3-5x.
Common Mistakes When Calculating MRR Growth
I've reviewed hundreds of SaaS dashboards, and these are the mistakes that make your growth metrics meaningless.
Mistake 1: Including One-Time Revenue
Wrong: Adding setup fees, consulting, or one-time purchases to MRRRight: Only count recurring subscription revenueExample: You land a $5,000 annual contract with a $1,000 setup fee. Your MRR increases by $416.67 ($5,000 ÷ 12), not $6,000.Mistake 2: Inconsistent Time Periods
Comparing January (31 days) to February (28 days) without normalization skews your data. Always use calendar months or normalize to 30-day periods.
Mistake 3: Ignoring Multiple Revenue Streams
If you run three SaaS products across three Stripe accounts, calculating growth for just one gives you a false picture. You need consolidated metrics.Pros
- Tracking each product individually shows which are growing
- Helps with resource allocation decisions
- Enables product-specific optimization
Cons
- Time-consuming to consolidate manually
- Easy to miss overall business trends
- Leads to inconsistent reporting
Mistake 4: Not Accounting for Annual Subscriptions
Receiving $12,000 from an annual subscription doesn't mean your MRR jumped by $12,000. It increased by $1,000/month for the next 12 months.
⚠️ Warning: Don't confuse cash flow with MRR. They're different metrics that tell different stories.
How to Track MRR Growth Across Multiple Products
Here's the reality: if you're running multiple SaaS products (and you should be diversifying), tracking consolidated MRR growth becomes exponentially harder.
The Manual Approach (Don't Do This)
Export Stripe Data - Download CSV files from each Stripe account monthly
Spreadsheet Hell - Manually categorize transactions, remove duplicates, calculate MRR
Calculate Growth - Build formulas, create charts, pray you didn't make errors
Repeat Monthly - Spend 4-6 hours every month on this tedious process
Time cost: 4-6 hours monthlyError rate: High (one misclassified transaction throws everything off)Scalability: Breaks down after 2-3 products
The Automated Approach
This is where tools like✅ Best practice: Set up automated alerts for significant growth changes (±10% MoM). This lets you investigate wins or problems while they're fresh.
Using MRR Growth Rate to Make Business Decisions
Tracking growth is pointless if you don't act on it. Here's how to use your growth rate data strategically.
Decision Framework
If growth rate is declining:Growth Rate Scenarios
| Growth Rate | Action Required | Timeline | |-------------|-----------------|----------| | Below 2% | Emergency mode—find the leak | This week | | 2-5% | Investigate and optimize | This month | | 5-15% | Maintain and scale | Ongoing | | 15%+ | Document and accelerate | Capture learnings |
Setting Growth Goals
Be Specific - "Increase MRR growth from 8% to 12% by June" beats "grow faster"
Break It Down - If you need 12% growth and churn is 4%, you need 16% gross growth
Track Leading Indicators - Monitor trial signups, activation rates, and demo requests weekly
Review Weekly - Don't wait until month-end to check if you're on track
💡 Pro tip: Use MultiMMR's goal tracking feature to set MRR targets and get automatic alerts when you're falling behind or ahead of schedule. This turns passive metrics into active management.
FAQ
Q: Should I track MRR growth rate monthly or yearly?Track both. Month-over-month (MoM) growth shows recent momentum and helps you spot issues quickly. Year-over-year (YoY) growth smooths out seasonal variations and one-time events. For board meetings and investor updates, use MoM as your primary metric but include YoY for context.
Q: How do I calculate growth rate when starting from zero MRR?The formula breaks when previous MRR is $0 (you can't divide by zero). Instead, report absolute MRR gained: "Added $2,500 MRR in first month." Once you have two consecutive months with revenue, use the standard formula.
Q: What's more important: MRR growth rate or total MRR?Depends on your stage. Pre-$50K MRR, growth rate matters more—it proves you can scale. Post-$100K MRR, both matter equally. Investors want to see large MRR numbers AND healthy growth. A $500K MRR business growing at 2% monthly is acquisition-ready; a $20K MRR business at 30% monthly is seed-fundable.
Q: How do multiple Stripe accounts affect MRR calculations?Each Stripe account reports MRR independently, so you must consolidate manually or use a tool. The math stays the same—add up MRR from all accounts for each period, then calculate growth. The challenge is execution: tracking 3+ accounts manually takes hours and invites errors. This is exactly why we built MultiMMR.
Key Takeaways
Here's what you need to remember:✅ MRR growth rate = (Current MRR - Previous MRR) / Previous MRR × 100 — Use this consistently every month
✅ Track four components separately: New MRR, Expansion MRR, Churned MRR, and Contraction MRR to understand what's driving growth
✅ Benchmark against your stage: 15-25% for seed stage, 10-15% for Series A, 5-10% for growth stage
✅ Automate tracking across multiple products: Manual spreadsheets don't scale past 2-3 products and waste 4-6 hours monthly
Your MRR growth rate isn't just a metric—it's the story of your SaaS business. It tells you whether you're building something valuable, whether your positioning resonates, and whether you're solving a real problem.
If you're managing multiple SaaS products across different Stripe accounts, you already know the pain of consolidating these metrics manually.Stop spending hours in spreadsheets. Start making data-driven decisions with accurate, consolidated MRR metrics. Try MultiMMR free for 14 days and see your complete growth picture in minutes, not hours.