.svg)
Logo Retention
Logo Retention measures how many of your starting customers you keep. Unlike GDR or NDR, Logo Retention counts the number of customers in periods rather than the amount of recurring revenue.
Formula
Like GDR, Logo Retention can never exceed 100%. When logo retention decreases, customers are churning and leaving your platform.
Logo Retention Methodologies
Trailing Period Logo Retention
Start with all customers active at the beginning of the period (e.g., the first day of the quarter). Count how many of those customers are still active at the end of the trailing period. Divide the retained count by the starting count. For example, if 100 customers were active on April 1 and 92 were still active on July 1, your 3-month trailing logo retention is 92%.
Cohorted Logo Retention
Cohorted retention buckets customers by a shared start event (such as contract signature or go-live date). Track how many customers from a given cohort are still active after a fixed interval (e.g., 12 months). The formula remains the same: Logo Retention = Remaining Customers ÷ Starting Customers. This helps measure improvements in onboarding, product fit, or support quality over time.
Renewal Logo Retention
This method evaluates retention at the contract renewal event. Start with the number of customers whose contracts expired in the analysis window. Count how many of them signed new contracts. Customers who churn contribute zero. The formula is Logo Retention = Renewed Customers ÷ Up for Renewal Customers. This method isolates performance of your customer-success and renewal process.
Why Logo Retention Matters
- Early churn signal. You may keep revenue flat through expansion even as customer count shrinks. Logo Retention detects that risk early.
- Forecasting customer base size. Sales and CS teams rely on customer counts to model pipeline, headcount needs, and account loads.
- Segment health check. Paired with GDR, Logo Retention helps pinpoint if small or large customers are leaving.
What "Good" Looks Like
These benchmarks mirror Gross Dollar Retention benchmarks, since both exclude expansion and capture core retention.
Calculation Tips
- Ignore ARR. Logo retention is based purely on whether the customer exists—not how much they spend.
- Exclude new customers. Measure only customers present at both the start and end of the window.
- Don’t count upsells. A retained customer who expanded still counts as one logo retained.
- Pair with GDR. Low logo retention with high GDR might indicate that smaller customers are churning, but high logo retention with low GDR might indicate that larger customers are churning.
Key Takeaways
- Logo Retention tracks customer count, not dollars, and maxes out at 100%.
- Trailing, cohort, and renewal views reveal different churn patterns.
- Best-in-class SaaS companies retain 95–97%+ of customers annually, depending on segment.
Need more guidance? Explore other Retention metrics in the Metrics Library.
