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MRR & growth calculator

Plot a realistic 12-month MRR projection. Move the sliders, watch the curve. Save the scenario, share the URL, or drop the chart on your devbio so visitors see where your SaaS is heading.

Scenario

Presets

MRR in month 12
$8,672
ARR run rate
$104,070
Customers
208
LTV
$975
ARPU ÷ churn

12-month projection

$2,168$4,336$6,504$8,672m1m3m5m7m9m11

Month-by-month

MonthNew MRRChurnExpansionMRRCustomers
m1+$468−$40+$15$1,44337
m2+$505−$58+$22$1,91249
m3+$546−$76+$29$2,41061
m4+$590−$96+$36$2,94074
m5+$637−$118+$44$3,50387
m6+$688−$140+$53$4,103102
m7+$743−$164+$62$4,743117
m8+$802−$190+$71$5,427133
m9+$866−$217+$81$6,157150
m10+$936−$246+$92$6,939168
m11+$1,010−$278+$104$7,776187
m12+$1,091−$311+$117$8,672208

On this page

  • What MRR actually is
  • The MRR formula
  • MRR vs ARR vs run rate
  • Churn — the silent killer
  • LTV : CAC and Quick Ratio
  • Indie-hacker milestones
  • FAQ
Guide

MRR, the one number every SaaS founder watches

MRR — monthly recurring revenue — is the heartbeat of a subscription business. It tells you what you can plan around, how fast you're growing, and how much churn is eating you alive. This guide is the long version: every formula, every gotcha, every benchmark for the path from $0 to your first $10k.

What MRR actually is

MRR is the sum of all your recurring revenue, normalised to a monthly figure. Two words to weigh: and .

Hooked to your real numbers

Show your actual MRR on your bio, not a projection.

Connect a read-only Stripe or Dodo key to your devbio and the MRR widget pulls the live number — auto-updating, never out of date.

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recurring
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Recurring means MRR excludes one-off charges — setup fees, onboarding, professional services, lifetime deals you sold on AppSumo. Those are real revenue, but they don't repeat. Counting them in MRR inflates the number and ruins forecasting. Keep them in "non-recurring revenue" on a separate line.

Monthly means yearly and quarterly plans get divided down. A $1,200/year plan contributes $100 to MRR, not $1,200. A $300/quarter plan contributes $100. This is how you keep apples-to-apples when a customer swaps between billing cadences.

The MRR formula

The full picture, broken down month-over-month:

MRR(this month) =
    MRR(last month)
  + New MRR        (from new customers signed this month)
  + Expansion MRR  (upgrades, add-ons, seat growth on existing customers)
  - Churned MRR    (customers who cancelled or downgraded to zero)
  - Contraction MRR (downgrades that didn't fully cancel)

The calculator above models the first four with sliders. Contraction is usually small for indie SaaS — fold it into churn unless you have tiered plans with meaningful downgrade flow.

The interactive version: Net New MRR = New + Expansion − Churn − Contraction. If Net New is positive every month, you're growing. If it's negative, you're on borrowed time even if the headline number is still going up.

MRR vs ARR vs run rate

The terms get sloppy. Here's the precise version:

  • MRR — the current month's recurring revenue.
  • ARR — Annual Recurring Revenue. MRR × 12. Only meaningful when you have stable monthly numbers; calling $400 MRR "$4.8k ARR" sounds impressive and predicts nothing.
  • Run rate — annualised projection of current performance. Sometimes computed from MRR × 12, sometimes from the trailing 90 days × 4. Always specify which.
  • NRR — Net Revenue Retention. How much of last year's MRR cohort is still here a year later, accounting for expansion. >100% means you grow even with no new signups. This is the "holy grail" metric for SaaS.

Investors care about ARR and NRR. Founders should run on MRR because monthly is the cadence at which subscription businesses actually breathe.

Churn — the silent killer

Churn rate (in percent per month) is the fraction of MRR you lose to cancellations. Two flavours:

  • Customer churn — # cancellations / # customers at start of month.
  • Revenue churn — $ lost / MRR at start of month. This is the one you put in the calculator. Revenue churn can be lower than customer churn (low-paying customers leave more often) or higher (whales leave more rarely but cost you when they do).

Benchmarks for indie SaaS, 2026 edition:

  • ≤ 3 % / mo — healthy. You're retaining; growth compounds.
  • 3 – 6 % / mo — typical for SMB SaaS. Manageable but you'll need to keep filling the leaky bucket.
  • > 6 % / mo — alarm. Half your customer base evaporates every year before you even count acquisition. Diagnose: weak onboarding, product-market mismatch, or pricing problem.

The MRR ceiling at any acquisition rate ≈ New MRR / Churn Rate. At $1,000 new MRR/month and 5 % churn, you cap out at $20k MRR. Push churn to 3 % and the ceiling is $33k. This is why retention beats acquisition dollar-for-dollar at every revenue level.

LTV : CAC and the Quick Ratio

LTV (Lifetime Value) is the gross-margin revenue you expect from one customer over their entire relationship with you. Quick formula for monthly subscriptions:

LTV ≈ ARPU × gross_margin / churn_rate

At $39 ARPU, 80 % gross margin, 4 % monthly churn: LTV ≈ $39 × 0.8 / 0.04 = $780. That's the upper bound on what you can spend to acquire one customer without losing money.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is total sales+marketing spend / new customers added. The healthy ratio target is LTV : CAC ≥ 3 : 1 with a payback period of 12 months or less.

The Quick Ratio is the SaaS-y composite metric for momentum:

Quick Ratio = (New MRR + Expansion MRR) / (Churn MRR + Contraction MRR)

Above 4 = excellent growth. 1 – 4 = grinding. Below 1 = shrinking. Track it monthly; it's a leading indicator of MRR direction.

The indie-hacker MRR milestones

What each milestone unlocks, and how long it usually takes:

  • $0 → $1k MRR — the hardest stretch. 3–18 months. Almost entirely about finding the right pain point. Marketing is bonus; product clarity is the lever. Charge from day one — free users mask whether anyone actually wants this.
  • $1k → $10k — the "ramen profitable" band. 6–24 months for most who get here. Mix of organic SEO, communities, and a single consistently-published surface (blog, YouTube, X). Churn becomes the ceiling — fix it before pumping acquisition.
  • $10k → $100k — your first hire happens here. Usually 1–3 years. Pricing power matters: a price bump from $29 → $39 is the cheapest way to add $X new MRR you'll ever find. Watch NRR closely.
  • $100k+ — congratulations, this is a real business. At this point public-MRR transparency (Indie Hackers, your devbio) compounds — you become the playbook other founders study.

FAQ

Should I include trials in MRR?
No. MRR is paid recurring revenue only. Trials that convert count from their first payment, not from the trial start. Keep a separate "Trial-to-paid conversion" metric for the funnel half.
How do I handle annual plans paid upfront?
You divide the annual revenue by 12 and recognise $1,200 a month for the year. Stripe handles this in their billing reporting if you turn on "Revenue Recognition". Cash and MRR are two different things — don't mix them.
What's a healthy growth rate?
For an indie SaaS in months 3-12 of life, 10-15 % MRR growth per month is healthy. This usually means doubling MRR every 6-7 months. From $1k MRR that's $10k in a year — totally achievable, very rare in practice.
Is MRR the same as 'cash collected'?
No. MRR is your subscription book value. Cash collected includes one-off fees, refunds, prepaid annuals, and is what hits your bank. The two diverge. Both matter, neither replaces the other.
Why does my devbio show a different MRR than my Stripe dashboard?
The widget on your devbio reads the same Subscription objects but normalises every billing cadence to monthly the same way Stripe's MRR endpoint does. Differences are usually trial subs (we skip), one-off invoices (we skip), or a plan price-change that hit mid-cycle. Hit "Sync now" on the bio editor to force-refresh.
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