Gross Dollar Retention
Gross dollar retention measures how much recurring revenue you keep from existing customers over a year, counting only the losses. You take a cohort's starting revenue, subtract churn and downgrades, but you do not add any expansion. The result is capped at 100 percent, so a figure of 90 percent means you lost a tenth of that base's revenue to cancellations and contractions.
Where net dollar retention can flatter you by letting big upgrades hide churn, gross dollar retention strips that away and shows the raw leak. For a founder it answers a blunt question: of the revenue I have today, how much will still be here in a year before I sell anyone anything more? A strong figure, typically above 90 percent for B2B, means your foundation is solid and expansion efforts build on rock rather than sand. A weak one tells you to fix the product, onboarding or fit before worrying about growth.