Metric guide · Revenue
MRR: monthly recurring revenue
Short answer
MRR, or monthly recurring revenue, is the normalized monthly value of every active paid subscription at the end of a month. Add each subscriber's recurring price converted to a monthly amount, so an annual plan counts as its price divided by 12. Leave out one-time charges, trials, taxes and refunds.
The formula
MRR = sum of (recurring price ÷ billing months) for every active paid subscription at month end
Unit: US dollars. Better when it goes up.
How to calculate it
- Export active paid subscriptions as of the last day of the month from your billing system or subscription platform.
- Convert each price to a monthly amount. Divide annual prices by 12 and quarterly prices by 3.
- Apply recurring discounts and remove taxes, one-time fees and subscriptions still in a free trial.
- Sum the monthly amounts and record the date the figure is as of.
Mistakes that distort it
A yearly plan paid in March adds one twelfth of its price to MRR in every month it is active. Booking the full amount in March overstates that month and understates the next eleven.
Revenue collected includes one-time purchases, renewals paid in advance and failed charges retried later. MRR is a snapshot of recurring value, so the two will not match.
A subscription in a free trial has no recurring price yet. Count it once the first paid period starts.
MRR for the current month is a live snapshot. Compare month-end figures with month-end figures.
Where Sondola reads it from
Sondola reads this metric from Stripe, RevenueCat, Paddle and Adapty, with the source and period on every reading. Each reading keeps where it came from, the period and the date it was recorded, and you can download all of it at any time.
See all 34 integrations →Questions
Should app store fees come out of MRR?
Pick one convention and keep it. Many subscription apps report MRR at gross price and track store fees in gross margin, but some tools report proceeds after fees. Check which one your source uses before comparing.
Is MRR the same as monthly revenue?
No. Monthly revenue is what you recognized or collected in the month. MRR is the monthly value of subscriptions active at month end, with annual plans spread evenly.
Related metrics
Written by the Sondola team. Benchmarks name their source, basis and date. Changes to how Sondola counts a number are on the corrections page.
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