What is MRR?

The short definition

MRR is the sum of what all your active subscriptions are worth per month. A $10 monthly plan adds $10. A $120 yearly plan adds $10 too, because $120 divided by twelve is $10. One-off payments, setup fees and refunds of past months are not part of it.

It is the headline number for subscription businesses because it changes slowly and predictably, which makes growth easy to see.

How to calculate it

1. List every active subscription. Canceled or fully unpaid ones do not count.
2. Convert each to a monthly amount: divide yearly by 12, multiply weekly by about 4.35, and so on.
3. Apply discounts that are currently active: a 50% coupon halves that subscription's contribution.
4. Multiply by quantity for per-seat plans.
5. Add it all up.

Most disagreements about MRR come from step 1 (do trials count?) and step 3 (do discounts count?). Pick a rule and state it.

MRR vs revenue

MRR is a snapshot of recurring income. Revenue is what actually came in during a period, including one-off sales. A business can have high revenue and no MRR (a store), or MRR that differs from this month's cash because of yearly plans paid up front.

For products without subscriptions, a rolling last 30 days of sales, net of refunds is a fair comparable. Read MRR vs last 30 days: which to show and see ARR.

How makerhandle shows MRR

Connect Stripe with a read-only restricted key and makerhandle calculates MRR exactly as above: active subscriptions, normalized to monthly, with active discounts applied. The number shows with a check mark and refreshes every few hours. Projects without subscriptions show the last 30 days of charges, net of refunds.

See Stripe MRR and how to show verified MRR.