- metrics
- 18
- computable
- 16
- breakdowns
- 6
Customer Success Metrics
Metrics for measuring customer health, retention and expansion.
Note: Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) are defined in Core Metrics.
Retention Metrics
Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
See Core Metrics for full definition.
Customer Success owns NRR as the primary outcome metric.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
See Core Metrics for full definition.
GRR shows retention with expansion taken out.
Logo Retention Rate
Definition: The percentage of customers retained over a period.
Formula:
Logo Retention Rate = (Customers at end - New customers) / Customers at start × 100
Or simply:
Logo Retention Rate = 100% - Logo Churn Rate
Logo Retention Rate is reported per customer segment.
What it tells you: How many customer relationships you keep, whatever each one is worth.
Health Metrics
Customer Health Score
Definition: A composite score predicting likelihood of retention or churn.
Formula:
Health Score (per account) = Weighted average of health indicators, scaled 0 to 100
Health Score (portfolio) = Average health score of active customers at period end
The per-account composite is built upstream and lands on the customer record as one score from 0 to 100. The portfolio Health Score is the average of that score across active customers, reported for the whole base and per customer segment.
Core indicators (choose 5-10):
| Indicator | Typical Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Product usage frequency | 25-35% | Are they using it regularly? |
| Feature adoption depth | 15-25% | Are they using key features? |
| Support sentiment | 10-20% | Are support interactions positive? |
| Engagement/responsiveness | 10-15% | Do they respond to outreach? |
| Contract/renewal status | 5-15% | How long until renewal? |
| Payment health | 5-10% | Do they pay on time? |
| Onboarding completion | 5-10% | Did they fully onboard? |
Important: Weights should be customized based on correlation with actual churn in your business. Usage and adoption typically carry the most weight. Segment customers (by size, industry, lifecycle stage) for more accurate scoring.
Reference weighting (a starting point, not canon): for a team building its first score. The weights are yours: replace them once you can test each signal against your own churn.
| Signal group | Reference weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Usage | 35% | Frequency and depth of product use, including adoption of key features |
| Engagement | 25% | Responsiveness to outreach, QBR attendance and an engaged executive sponsor |
| Support | 20% | Ticket volume trend, escalations and support sentiment |
| Commercial | 20% | Payment health, renewal status and expansion or contraction history |
Scoring:
- 0-40: At risk (red)
- 40-70: Needs attention (yellow)
- 70-100: Healthy (green)
What it tells you: Which customers need attention before they churn.
Industry adoption: Only ~42% of CS teams track health scores, despite evidence that AI-enhanced scoring can predict churn 3-6 months in advance with 85%+ accuracy.
Sources:
- Gainsight: Customer Health Score
- Vitally: Customer Health Score Guide
- Custify: Customer Health Score Guide
Health Score Coverage
Definition: The percentage of active customers that have a health score.
Formula:
Health Score Coverage = Customers with health score / Total customers × 100
Health Score Coverage is reported per customer segment.
Target: 100% of managed accounts, or all accounts above a revenue threshold.
What it tells you: Whether you have visibility into customer health.
At-Risk Customer Rate
Definition: The percentage of customers flagged as at-risk.
Formula:
At-Risk Rate = Customers with health score < 40 / Total scored customers × 100
At-Risk Customer Rate is reported per customer segment.
Variant entered_at_risk: the share of customers active at period start that entered the at_risk state in the period. The move into state_category = 'at_risk' is a leading indicator of churn, which this variant counts as it happens.
Benchmarks:
- Below 5%: Healthy portfolio
- 5-10%: Normal, requires attention
- 10-20%: Elevated risk
- Above 20%: Portfolio in trouble
Engagement Metrics
Quarterly Business Review (QBR) Completion Rate
Definition: The percentage of eligible accounts that completed a QBR.
Formula:
QBR Completion = Accounts with a completed QBR / Accounts due a QBR × 100
A QBR counts as completed when it is held in the period. Eligible accounts are those due a QBR in the period.
Target: 90%+ for enterprise/strategic accounts
What it tells you: Whether you are keeping up the regular reviews that strategic relationships run on.
Executive Sponsor Coverage
Definition: The percentage of active accounts with an engaged contact whose role is executive sponsor.
Formula:
Exec Sponsor Coverage = Accounts with an engaged executive sponsor contact / Active accounts × 100
Population: Contacts come from the contact dataset (one row per named person at an account, with a role and an engaged flag). An account counts once however many sponsors it has. Restrict to managed accounts by filtering the denominator.
What it tells you: Whether you have a senior relationship at each account. Accounts with an engaged sponsor tend to hold up better at renewal.
Contact Coverage
Definition: Average number of engaged contacts per active account.
Formula:
Contact Coverage = Engaged contacts / Active accounts
Population: Engaged contacts are rows of the contact dataset with the engaged flag set at period end (engaged means activity in the last 90 days, however the CRM defines activity). The denominator is active accounts, so an account with no contacts pulls the average down rather than disappearing from it.
Target: 3+ contacts per account
What it tells you: Whether accounts depend on a single contact. An account with several engaged contacts is less likely to churn when one person leaves.
Expansion Metrics
Expansion Revenue Rate
Definition: Expansion MRR as a percentage of beginning MRR.
Formula:
Expansion Rate = Expansion MRR / Beginning MRR × 100
Benchmarks:
- Below 10%: Limited expansion motion
- 10-20%: Moderate, typical for early-stage
- 20-30%: Strong, solid benchmark for growth stage
- 30-40%: Excellent, typical at $15M+ ARR
- 40%+: Exceptional, common in usage-based or high-ARPA models
By company stage:
- Early stage (<$1M ARR): ~10% from expansion (90% new customers)
- Growth stage ($1M-$20M ARR): 20-30% from expansion
- Scale stage ($20M+ ARR): 35%+ from expansion
- Mature ($200M+ ARR): Up to 66% from expansion
Expansion Revenue Rate is reported per customer segment.
What it tells you: How fast existing customers grow their spend. As companies mature, expansion becomes the largest source of growth.
Sources:
License Utilization
Definition: The share of purchased seats that are assigned to a user, across active licenses at period end.
Formula:
License Utilization = Seats assigned / Seats purchased × 100
Population: Active licenses (the license dataset: one row per entitlement a subscription grants, with the product it covers, seats purchased and seats assigned). Reported for the whole base and per product (by product id and product name).
Target: 70 to 90 percent. Below 70 percent the account is paying for seats it does not use and is a downgrade risk at renewal. Above 90 percent the account is close to needing more seats, which is an expansion signal.
What it tells you: Whether customers are growing into what they bought. For seat-priced products it is the earliest hard signal of contraction or expansion.
Upsell Rate
Definition: The percentage of customers eligible for an upgrade at period start who upgraded in the period.
Formula:
Upsell Rate = Customers who upgraded / Customers eligible for upgrade × 100
What it tells you: How well you turn upgrade headroom into upgrades.
Cross-sell Rate
Definition: The percentage of customers active at period start who bought an additional product in the period.
Formula:
Cross-sell Rate = Customers who bought additional product / Total customers × 100
What it tells you: Multi-product adoption and stickiness.
Renewal Metrics
Renewal Rate
Definition: The percentage of subscriptions whose term ended in the period that renewed.
Formula (by logo):
Renewal Rate = Contracts renewed / Contracts up for renewal × 100
Formula (by value):
Renewal Rate = ARR renewed / ARR up for renewal × 100
Always specify logo or value basis.
Benchmarks:
- Below 85%: Concerning, indicates retention problem
- 85-90%: Below average
- 90-95%: Good (90% is the industry norm per 2025 data)
- 95%+: Excellent, top-quartile performance
By segment:
- SMB: 85%+ is good (higher churn expected)
- Mid-market: 90%+ is good
- Enterprise: 95%+ expected
Sources:
Renewal Forecast Accuracy
Definition: How closely the forecast renewal value matched the value actually renewed, for contracts ending in the period.
Formula:
Forecast Accuracy = 1 - |Forecasted renewals - Actual renewals| / Actual renewals
Target: >90%
What it tells you: How far revenue planning can rely on the renewal forecast.
Days to Renewal
Definition: Average number of days until upcoming renewals.
What it tells you: How soon the renewal workload arrives. A short average means renewals are bunched close together, which strains CSM capacity.
Productivity Metrics
Accounts per CSM
Definition: The number of accounts assigned to each Customer Success Manager.
Formula:
Accounts per CSM = Total managed accounts / Number of CSMs
Benchmarks by touch model:
| Model | Accounts per CSM | Typical ACV |
|---|---|---|
| High-touch Enterprise | 10-50 (median ~22) | $100K+ |
| Mid-touch | 50-100 (median ~49) | $25K-$100K |
| Low-touch/SMB | 100-250 | $5K-$25K |
| Tech-touch/Digital | 300-500+ | <$5K |
By account value:
- <$25K ACV: Up to 200 accounts
- $25K-$100K: 100-150 accounts
- $100K-$500K: 50-100 accounts
- $500K+: 10-25 accounts (high-touch required)
Important: There’s no universal standard. The right ratio depends on product complexity, customer needs and engagement model. Calculate based on capacity: reserve ~2/3 of CSM time for customer-facing work.
Sources:
ARR per CSM
Definition: Total ARR managed by each CSM.
Formula:
ARR per CSM = Total managed ARR / Number of CSMs
Benchmarks:
| Segment | ARR per CSM |
|---|---|
| Enterprise | $2M-$5M (69% manage >$2M) |
| Mid-market | $2M-$5M (spread across more accounts) |
| SMB | $1M-$2M |
Distribution (Gainsight data):
- Median (50th percentile): $1.4M
- Top quartile (75th percentile): $4.2M
Common rule of thumb: Hire 1 CSM per $2M ARR.
CS team cost benchmark: Customer Success should cost 5-15% of ARR (under 10% for companies >$100M ARR).
What it tells you: CSM productivity and capacity planning.
Sources:
- Gainsight: CS Team Planning & Cost Benchmarks
- ChurnZero: CS Capacity Planning
- Tomasz Tunguz: How Much ARR Can a CSM Manage?
Summary Table
| Metric | Type | Primary Indicator Of |
|---|---|---|
| NRR | Retention | Revenue sustainability |
| GRR | Retention | Baseline retention health |
| Customer Health Score | Health | Churn risk prediction |
| At-Risk Rate | Health | Portfolio risk level |
| Expansion Rate | Growth | Upsell/cross-sell effectiveness |
| License Utilization | Growth | Seat usage, contraction and expansion signal |
| Renewal Rate | Retention | Contract renewal success |
| Accounts per CSM | Productivity | Team capacity |
Related Metrics
These metrics are connected in the GASP relationship graph.
Upstream: what drives metrics on this page
- Feature Adoption Rate drives Customer Health Score (Product)
- DAU/MAU Ratio drives Customer Health Score (Product)
- Expansion MRR component of Expansion Revenue Rate (Core)
- MRR component of Expansion Revenue Rate (Core)
Downstream: what metrics on this page drive
- Customer Health Score reduces Logo Churn Rate (Core)
- Customer Health Score drives Expansion MRR (Core)
- Customer Health Score measures Customer (Entity)
- Expansion Revenue Rate measures Customer (Entity)
- Expansion Revenue Rate measures Subscription (Entity)
- Renewal Rate drives GRR (Core)
- Renewal Rate measures Subscription (Entity)
- At-Risk Customer Rate predicts Logo Churn Rate (Core)
- At-Risk Customer Rate measures Customer (Entity)
- QBR Completion Rate drives Expansion MRR (Core)
- QBR Completion Rate measures Customer (Entity)