Net Dollar Retention

topic on 5 shows · 44 statements across 34 episodes

the Y Combinator Startup Podcast the Official SaaStr Podcast A Product Market Fit Show Top Founders 20VC

44 statements about Net Dollar Retention, every show

20VC Insight
McMahon: Consumption software relies on small initial deals and high NDR
“It does change it, because you're probably going to get, originally you're going to get much smaller deal sizes, and then you have to count on going back and getting the renewal and a much bigger upsell. And that's why net dollar retention's become such a crit…”
John McMahon Nov 28, 2025 ▶ 7:47 20Sales: John McMahon on How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Sales Reps | How Sales Changes in a World of AI | Sales Lessons from Snowflake and MongoDB | How to Create and Drive a Sales Process with Urgency
SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated
Awotona: Sales-led Calendly customers drove significantly higher retention and NDR
“The reason we lean into that motion is because we observe that those customers who came in through the sales process had just very, very different retention mechanism qualities. They also have very, very different NDR qualities. They expanded it a lot further.”
Tope Awotona Aug 25, 2025 ▶ 21:35 From PLG to Enterprise to SMB: Insights from Calendly's CEO Tope Awotona
20VC Insight
Teixeira: Customer Success teams should be compensated on net dollar retention
“I think CS should be comped on net dollar retention. They've got a role to play in the process. And I think it's important that there's overlap between how they're compensated and how the AE is compensated.”
Julian Teixeira Mar 7, 2025 ▶ 25:56 Julian Teixeira, CRO @ 1Password: How to Hire and Train Your First Sales Hires · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
SAASTR Assertion Supported
Tunguz: Top-quartile SaaS net dollar retention dropped from 130% to 120%
“Top quartile used to be around a 130%. Now it's about a 120%.”
Tomasz Tunguz Oct 24, 2024 ▶ 18:51 The State of SaaS Go-to-Market l Theory Ventures General Partner Tomasz Tunguz #saas #b2bsaas
SAASTR Assertion Partly supported
Tunguz: Hybrid seat-and-usage pricing yields 3x net dollar retention growth
“If you're using a combination pricing model, in other words, seats plus usage, three X the growth in that dollar retention as somebody who's using any other form of pricing.”
Tomasz Tunguz Oct 24, 2024 ▶ 18:57 The State of SaaS Go-to-Market l Theory Ventures General Partner Tomasz Tunguz #saas #b2bsaas
SAASTR Insight
Investors demand a clear path to at least 100% net dollar retention
“A hundred percent NDR is something that investors really care for. Doesn't mean that you necessarily have to be there at the Series A, but I think there needs to be some path of getting there because people are really afraid of investing in businesses that kee…”
Christoph Janz Sep 25, 2024 ▶ 12:46 5 Metrics that Matter When Raising Your SaaS Series A and Series B with Christoph Janz of Point 9
PRODUCT MARKET FIT Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hanslovan: Huntress achieves an elite 140% Net Dollar Retention at 12 months
“Net dollar retention or net revenue retention. If you don't have that land adopted, expand and naturally growing, which ours grows a 140% at 12 months.”
Kyle Hanslovan Sep 23, 2024 ▶ 44:17 He got rejected by 60 VCs—then grew to $100M ARR. | Kyle, founder of Huntress · PMF Show
Blomfield: Early-stage B2B SaaS startups should target 125% to 150%+ NDR
“The final thing, as a benchmark, any early stage B to B SaaS company should be looking at net dollar retention well above 100%. This is for several reasons. First of all, you've probably underpriced your product with your first launch. So you might charge 10,0…”
Tom Blomfield Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 15:19 B2B Startup Metrics | Startup School · Y Combinator
Blomfield: 110% to 120% NDR is a good benchmark for mature SaaS companies
“For mature companies in the same range, 110%, 120% is pretty good net dollar retention.”
Tom Blomfield Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 16:08 B2B Startup Metrics | Startup School · Y Combinator
Blomfield: Sub-100% NDR means fixing churn before increasing sales spend
“If your net dollar retention is below 100%, especially for enterprise B to B SaaS, something is wrong. You are churning off customers. They don't love the product. And I would invest in fixing that. Talking to customers and figuring out why they're churning of…”
Tom Blomfield Dec 15, 2023 ▶ 16:14 B2B Startup Metrics | Startup School · Y Combinator
SAASTR Insight
Zinman: A mature SaaS company's revenue growth rate eventually converges to its NDR
“When you reach that point NDR basically represents your growth rate. If you got a 130% NDR and 95% of your revenue is coming from existing customers, your revenue is going to be about 30%. Just the law of nature. Your new customer is going to add to that, but …”
Eran Zinman Aug 3, 2023 ▶ 49:31 The Most Important SaaS Metrics with Monday.com Co-Founders and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin
TOP FOUNDERS Disclosure
Ferber: Britek operates at 110% to 120% Net Dollar Retention
“In our case, we are working in a range between one 10 to one 20%.”
Yuri Ferber Jul 13, 2023 ▶ 13:35 Top 3 Considerations When Growing Your Business from Single Product to Multi-Product
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Vickstrom: Mobal maintains approximately 100% net dollar retention
“It's been something about a hundred percent.”
Jacob Vickstrom Feb 5, 2023 ▶ 13:43 How he grew from $30k/mo to $120k/mo TTM for his Business Listing Metadata Management SaaS
Latka: Million-dollar customer count is the best indicator of 150%+ NDR
“That's the best clue you can look in a SaaS company to Do they have the ability to drive net dollar attention above one 50 is how many customers are paying more than a million bucks a year.”
Nathan Latka Jan 19, 2023 ▶ 5:20 $50m Revenue Selling Salesforce for Real Estate Brokerages, Beauty of Multi Year Deals with Accelerators
TOP FOUNDERS Disclosure
Earner prioritizes monthly active usage over net dollar retention
“We're not actively measuring all the dollar retention figures. Like we're focusing more on just kind of what we built so far. We're looking a lot more into monthly active users and what different features within our app our customers use.”
Enzo Ottens Dec 16, 2022 ▶ 8:10 SMB Tax App hits $20k MRR by getting 1k+ Signups and Converting 20-50% to $35/mo paid accounts
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Zomentum's net dollar retention for channel partners exceeds 100%
“On the partner side, though, there are more, not more avenues, which is like what we've known for a while because it's only the seed increase and some add-ons here and there, but still above a hundred percent.”
Shruti Ghatge Dec 5, 2022 ▶ 14:52 She hit $250k MRR in November for Partnership SaaS, 4000 Customers, approx $90m Valuation
SAASTR Insight
Blond: Headcount slowdowns are compressing SaaS net dollar retention
“Companies are hiring less today. And so the net dollar retention for within a customer base for a company that licenses software and their revenue is sort of directly influenced by the headcount growth or something like that of their customers, that is slowing…”
Sam Blond Oct 27, 2022 ▶ 14:25 CRO Confidential: Sales Comp, Quotas & Recruiting with Jason Lemkin and Sam Blond of Founders Fund
Latka: Unlimited applicant tracking caps SaaS net dollar retention
“I mean, the flip side of all this is if you're going to let people do unlimited tracking of applicants, you also effectively cut off your ability to ever reach a 140, a 150% net dollar retention, because you have no way to expand customers if, unless they're r…”
Nathan Latka Sep 10, 2022 ▶ 10:24 Should you launch a new SaaS when your current one is doing $5m in ARR?
SAASTR Insight
Alter: High NDR with low GDR signals selective product-market fit
“What that tells an investor is that some of your customers are doing exceptionally well with your software. They're upselling in a massive way. But others are not having product market fit at all, and they're falling off. This is really good to know. It's a pr…”
Molly Alter Aug 3, 2022 ▶ 10:13 The Metrics that Matter, Whether You Are Raising $1m or $100m | Index Ventures Partner Molly Alter
SAASTR Assertion Supported
Alter: 160% NDR yields 4.2x growth over 120% NDR over five years
“And when the NDR was one 60% versus 120%, the company grew 4.2 times over a five year period.”
Molly Alter Aug 3, 2022 ▶ 11:04 The Metrics that Matter, Whether You Are Raising $1m or $100m | Index Ventures Partner Molly Alter
Latka: Charging setup fees almost always yields higher net dollar retention
“I think it's really important when you look at cohort analysis in terms of net dollar retention on folks that have done and paid you for services. It's always higher, almost always higher than folks that don't pay that setup fee or don't pay the service fee as…”
Nathan Latka Jul 6, 2022 ▶ 8:32 SaaS company and want to move into payments? Justifi helps you do it fast. Almost $5b in platform GMV across 36 customers today.
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Threekit maintains a net dollar retention rate between 110% and 120%
“Are you guys above a 110, 120% today? Matt Gorniak: Yeah. Matt Gorniak: And what we're seeing is that's right. Matt Gorniak: That's right.”
Matt Gorniak May 10, 2022 ▶ 17:29 How ThreeKit Plans to Grow into their $300m+ Valuation, Break $10m Revenue This Year
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
SEON boasts an exceptionally high net dollar retention near 200%
“It's very close to 200, actually.”
Thomas Kedar Feb 25, 2022 ▶ 8:52 Popular Identity Verification Tool Raising $60m on $400m Now with $10m in Revenue
SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stone: Over half of software companies have weak or negative NDR
“More than half of companies out there have very weak to negative net dollar retention metrics.”
Dorian Stone Jan 20, 2022 ▶ 9:23 Scaling from Consumer to SMB to Enterprise with Grammarly Head of Organizations Revenue Dorian Stone
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Symbl.ai achieved a 125% Net Dollar Retention rate over 12 months
“Yeah, one 25.”
Surbhi Rathore Jan 11, 2022 ▶ 16:10 Voice AI Company Raises $17m at $80m Valuation, 50x Revenue Multiple, Scaling Fast with NDR of 120%
TOP FOUNDERS Disclosure
Symbl.ai targets at least 132% NDR by next quarter
“Yeah, we want to do at least one 32 by the end of next quarter. That's our objective.”
Surbhi Rathore Jan 11, 2022 ▶ 16:15 Voice AI Company Raises $17m at $80m Valuation, 50x Revenue Multiple, Scaling Fast with NDR of 120%
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Latka: 150% NDR drives 40x to 50x SaaS premium valuations
“Some of the valuations where you're seeing 40 and 50 X multiples are ones where net dollar retention is like a 150%, even if revenue growth overall is slower, but your NDR is really high. That's by far where the premium valuations are happening today.”
Nathan Latka Dec 21, 2021 ▶ 9:45 MedStack Grows 300% TTM, Raises $3.2m Seed at $15m Valuation
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mahmudian: Tribe's net dollar retention is currently below 100%
“So our net dollar retention right now is lower than a hundred percent, which is a problem that we are fixing.”
Siavash Mahmudian Nov 17, 2021 ▶ 21:40 Tribe Hits $2.4m ARR, 300% Yoy Growth, $42m Valuation Helping Businesses Manage Their Communities
Latka: High net retention drives Series A multiples more than growth
“The folks that are getting the highest multiples on their series A rounds are not the ones going revenue the fastest. It's the ones that have the highest net dollar retention, you know, one, 21, 30%.”
Nathan Latka Nov 17, 2021 ▶ 23:18 Tribe Hits $2.4m ARR, 300% Yoy Growth, $42m Valuation Helping Businesses Manage Their Communities
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gibby: The Bot Platform achieves 118% net dollar retention
“It's a 118% is what our where is that?”
Tom Gibby Oct 12, 2021 ▶ 11:43 Bot Building SaaS Hits $1.2m ARR With Just $300k Raised
Consumption SaaS NDR reaches 180% while classic subscriptions top at 130%
“So in consumption, you see companies with a 150, a 160, a 170, a 180% in, in sort of more your classic subscription, you know, one 10 is very good. One 20 is like, is really good. One 30 is like awesome, right? And so that's kind of the range. If you're more o…”
Nick Mehta Sep 6, 2021 ▶ 9:13 Was Selling Majority to Vista The Right Move? Gainsight Customer Success Platform Hits $100m ARR, 1,000 Customers
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bendov: Gong's net dollar retention is over 150%
“So our NDR is almost always, like, even these days, moreover, like, a 150%.”
Amit Bendov Jul 5, 2021 ▶ 8:19 Will Gong Break $10b Valuation by October?
Latka: Highest SaaS valuations require net dollar retention over 150%
“The companies right now, they're in the highest valuations. They all have net dollar retention above 150%. Right. So like, that's one of the key, that plus just overall growth rate are really the key drivers I'm seeing today of SAS valuations.”
Nathan Latka May 30, 2021 ▶ 13:16 Bootstrapped to $4m, $2m profits, Wants to Exit by End Of Year
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Granulate's net dollar retention is over 120%
“Is it fair to say your net dollar retention on the base that you had active a year ago is over a 120%? [978] Asaf Ezra: Yeah.”
Asaf Ezra Apr 14, 2021 ▶ 16:12 Granulate Breaking Records in Cloud Computing Savings Space, $30m Revenue Next?
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sales Impact Academy maintains roughly 100 percent net dollar retention
“We have a hundred percent net dollar retention, basically.”
Paul Fifield Jan 18, 2021 ▶ 7:25 SalesImpact Hits $1.5m ARR Training SaaS Sales Leaders
SAASTR Insight
Kellogg: Net dollar retention measures customer base health better than churn
“Net dollar retention, which I think is actually a more effective way to get at what churn is trying to measure.”
Dave Kellogg Jan 10, 2021 ▶ 0:30 Churn is dead. Long live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg | SaaStr Software Community
SAASTR Assertion Supported
Kellogg: 2020 SaaS IPOs Averaged $330M ARR, 49% Growth, 120% NDR
“The average one had three hundred and thirty million in ARR, 49% revenue growth, and a 120% net dollar retention.”
Dave Kellogg Jan 10, 2021 ▶ 41:26 Churn is dead. Long live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg | SaaStr Software Community
SAASTR Assertion Contradicted
Kellogg: Net Dollar Retention Shows Almost Zero Correlation With SaaS Multiples
“The R squared is only .O six between net dollar retention and enterprise value to next 12 months revenue.”
Dave Kellogg Jan 10, 2021 ▶ 42:41 Churn is dead. Long live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg | SaaStr Software Community
SAASTR Insight
Kellogg: NDR Is a Financing Enabler, Not a Valuation Driver
“So it's not a valuation driver. I now think of it as a financing enabler, right? Okay. So a higher one isn't necessarily by itself going to drive a higher valuation, but I could tell you if you don't have a high enough one, you're not going to be able to raise…”
Dave Kellogg Jan 10, 2021 ▶ 42:48 Churn is dead. Long live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg | SaaStr Software Community
SAASTR Insight
Kellogg: A Good SaaS Net Dollar Retention Rate Is Around 115%
“A good rate is around a 115%.”
Dave Kellogg Jan 10, 2021 ▶ 48:46 Churn is dead. Long live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg | SaaStr Software Community
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
PandaDoc has positive net dollar retention
“I'll tell you that our net net retention is positive.”
Mikita Mikado Jul 29, 2020 ▶ 23:45 PandaDoc Hits 14k Customers, $100+ ARPU, "Will Hit $19m in ARR in 2019"
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mike Arendt: HotSchedules hits 110 percent net retention despite restaurant closures
“Our gross retention is like 90% and our net dollar retention is a 110%, which is pretty amazing when four to five percent of our churn is uninfluenciable, right?”
Mike Arendt Jan 10, 2019 ▶ 5:52 1265 How $100m ARR HotSchedules Passed 160,000 Restaruant Customers, 110% Net Annual Dollar Retention
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schoenfeld: Siftrock Net Dollar Retention Is Around 135%
“Net's like one 35.”
Adam Schoenfeld Nov 8, 2018 ▶ 17:42 1202 He Raised $20m+ in First Company, Now Bootstrapping in B2B Sales Tech Space, $1m in ARR
TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated
Demandbase maintains a 110% net dollar retention rate
“We get a very high dollar amount per customer and, you know, a 110% net dollar retention.”
Chris Golec Oct 19, 2017 ▶ 14:40 817: SaaS: DemandBase Raises $65m More, $90m+ ARR, Leading ABM Space, IPO Next?

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