E17 · Commercial retention
Synthetic practice, not company performance.
One decision
Is rising MRR healthy?
Run the exact query
WITH b AS(SELECT * FROM sim_billing WHERE month>=substr('2026-05-01',1,7) AND month<substr('2026-10-01',1,7)) SELECT month,SUM(opening_mrr) opening_mrr,SUM(new_mrr) new_mrr,SUM(expansion) expansion,SUM(contraction) contraction,SUM(churn) churn,SUM(closing_mrr) closing_mrr,(SUM(opening_mrr)-SUM(contraction)-SUM(churn))/NULLIF(SUM(opening_mrr),0) grr,(SUM(opening_mrr)+SUM(expansion)-SUM(contraction)-SUM(churn))/NULLIF(SUM(opening_mrr),0) nrr FROM b GROUP BY month ORDER BY month;
Download SQL · Result CSV · Metabase saved question
Chart and reading
Reconcile opening+new+expansion-contraction-churn=closing; inspect GRR/NRR.
Challenge your recommendation
Does new revenue hide losses among existing accounts?
Guardrails: Full calendar months only; exclude October partial. Normalized fictional subscription MRR; not cash or actual price tiers.
Next evidence: Actual contracts, renewals, logo loss, refunds and accounting policy.
PRD sections: 2, 14. Open proposed PRD
Your spoken decision
State one takeaway, one caveat and one action in 30 seconds. Then stop.
Connect this finding
What this chart helps decide · Follow the connected decision · Canonical metric definitions
Optional model answer — try your own first
E17 · Commercial retention
Decision: Is rising MRR healthy?
Readout: Reconcile opening+new+expansion-contraction-churn=closing; inspect GRR/NRR.
Actual query output (synthetic), first rows:
| month | opening_mrr | new_mrr | expansion | contraction | churn | closing_mrr | grr | nrr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05 | 0.0 | 3840.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 3840.0 | ||
| 2026-06 | 3840.0 | 3831.0 | 10.8 | 0.0 | 690.0 | 6991.8 | 0.8203125 | 0.823125 |
| 2026-07 | 6991.8 | 4701.0 | 148.8 | 312.0 | 252.0 | 11277.6 | 0.9193340770617009 | 0.94061615034755 |
Model spoken answer: I would separate new sales from existing-account retention before calling recurring growth healthy.
Caveat/counterargument: Does new revenue hide losses among existing accounts? Full calendar months only; exclude October partial. Normalized fictional subscription MRR; not cash or actual price tiers.
Next evidence: Actual contracts, renewals, logo loss, refunds and accounting policy.
Deliberately left out: Treating MRR as cash or adding one-off usage purchases.