How to calculate Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Formula

MRR = sum of monthly-equivalent subscription fees for all active subscriptions

SQL query

This example assumes: subscriptions(id, customer_id, started_at, ended_at, mrr) where mrr is already per month. It is written in PostgreSQL syntax; date functions differ slightly in MySQL, BigQuery and SQLite, and your column names will differ from these.

SELECT m AS month,
       SUM(s.mrr) AS mrr
FROM GENERATE_SERIES(DATE '2026-01-01', DATE '2026-12-01', INTERVAL '1 month') AS m
JOIN subscriptions s
  ON s.started_at <= m
 AND (s.ended_at IS NULL OR s.ended_at > m)
GROUP BY m
ORDER BY m;

Common mistakes that make Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) wrong

• Annual plans must be divided by 12; adding the full annual fee in the month it is paid makes MRR spike.
• One-off fees, setup charges and usage overages are not recurring.
• Free trials and discounted-to-zero accounts inflate customer count but not MRR; keep them out of both.

Ask for Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) in plain English

Instead of writing the query yourself, you can type the question. SchemaChat turns it into SQL against your connected database or uploaded file, runs it, and shows the SQL and the figures it used so you can check the answer before you share it. It does not replace your judgement about the definition: check that the query matches the formula your business uses.

• What was our MRR at the end of each month this year?
• Which customers contribute the most MRR?