Gross Dollar Retention (GDR) tracks the percentage of the original recurring revenue that a group of customers retains over time. GDR shows the net impact that contraction and churn have on a business. Especially when compared with logo retention, GDR demonstrates the revenue impact of churned customers. Some logo retention is inevitably and not fatal for a business; if small ACV customers (who are more likely to) churn but large customers retain well, companies can maintain high GDR.

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Formula
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There are three methods of calculating GDR:

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No matter how you measure, GDR is essential to understanding how much recurring revenue you have lost historically, and likely will in the future. NDR often gets more attention, but can be heavily weighted by large expansions, which is more common when the macro environment is good and customers are early in their lifecycle. Even if a company has high NDR, if GDR is low because many customers are churning or a smaller number of large ACV customers are churning, eventually the overall retention and growth of the business will degrade.

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