The revenue you have
already signed for.
Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue is current MRR plus every signed, dated contract change still to take effect. It is the number that tells you whether the hire you are planning for January is already paid for — and the one that admits when your signed book is shrinking.
CMRR = current MRR + signed new + contracted expansion − contracted downgrades − known churn
Every term on the right needs a signed contract behind it and an effective date attached to it. That admission test is the metric.
Enter what is billing today and the contract events you have already signed. The worksheet returns the reconciliation from MRR to CMRR, the bridge showing which month each commitment lands in, implied ARR on both bases, and a CSV you can hand to a board or a lender. Sample figures are loaded so the bridge is legible before you type — they are an illustration, not a benchmark.
Build your CMRR bridge
Where you are today
Current MRR ($)
Starting month (optional)
YYYY-MM to label the bridge with calendar months. Leave it blank and the bridge counts forward from this month instead.Signed contract events
One row per change that is already signed and dated. Enter every amount as a positive monthly figure — the worksheet applies the direction. There is no probability field on purpose: a deal that needs one is pipeline, and pipeline does not belong in CMRR.Monthly amount ($)
Effective in (months)
Reference (optional)
Monthly amount ($)
Effective in (months)
Reference (optional)
Monthly amount ($)
Effective in (months)
Reference (optional)
Monthly amount ($)
Effective in (months)
Reference (optional)
Monthly amount ($)
Effective in (months)
Reference (optional)
$46,800
+$4,800 against $42,000 billing today (+11.4%).
$504,000
$561,600
Reconciliation
The bridge, month by month
Which signed events become active when, over the next 12 months.| Month | Net change | Committed MRR |
|---|---|---|
| This month | — | $42,000 |
| In 1 month | +$3,800 | $45,800 |
| In 2 months | +$700 | $46,500 |
| In 3 months | +$2,400 | $48,900 |
| In 4 months | −$2,100 | $46,800 |
| In 5 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 6 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 7 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 8 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 9 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 10 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 11 months | — | $46,800 |
| In 12 months | — | $46,800 |
What CMRR actually measures
Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue is your current MRR carried forward through every contract change that is already signed and dated. Take the recurring revenue billing this month, add the signed contracts that have not started yet and the expansions that step up on a known date, then subtract the downgrades you have already agreed to and the cancellations whose notice has already arrived.
The formula is deliberately dull: CMRR = current MRR + signed new MRR + contracted expansion MRR − contracted downgrade MRR − known churn MRR. What makes it useful is not the arithmetic but the admission gate. A number only enters if there is a signed contract behind it and a date attached to it.
That gate is the whole metric. MRR tells you what is billing. CMRR tells you what will be billing once the paperwork you have already signed takes effect. The gap between the two is the part of your revenue that exists legally but not yet financially.
Why the gap is worth measuring
A bootstrapped SaaS company plans against cash it does not have yet. You decide in September whether you can afford a January hire. MRR answers that question with September data and pretends nothing is already in motion, which understates you if three signed contracts start in Q4 and overstates you if your largest customer has already given notice.
CMRR resolves both distortions at once, and it is symmetrical. It is not a growth number dressed up as a metric. A company with a healthy MRR and a shrinking signed book will show a CMRR below its MRR, and that is the most useful thing this metric ever tells anyone.
| Metric | Question it answers | Timing | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| MRR | What is billing right now? | This month, actuals | Active subscriptions currently being invoiced. |
| CMRR | What will be billing once signed contracts take effect? | Current month plus dated future changes | Active subscriptions, plus signed starts, expansions, downgrades and served cancellations. |
| ARR | What is the annualised run-rate? | A multiple of whichever monthly figure you annualised | MRR × 12, or CMRR × 12 — say which, because the two differ and both get called ARR. |
| Bookings | What did we sell this period? | Point of signature | Total contract value signed in the period, regardless of when it starts or bills. |
A worked example
A company bills $42,000 of MRR in September. Two signed contracts have not started: $3,800 beginning in October and $2,400 phasing in from December. A signed expansion adds $1,600 at a November renewal. A customer has agreed a $900 downgrade in November, and another has served notice on $2,100 that ends in January.
CMRR is $46,800 against $42,000 billing today, an 11.4% committed uplift. Note what the single figure hides: the company is at $45,800 in October, $46,500 in November and does not reach $46,800 until January, once the last signed event lands. That timing is why the bridge matters more than the headline.
CMRR is only more useful than MRR if the admission test holds. Every row below turns on the same two questions: is it signed, and does it have an effective date?
Signature plus an effective date is exactly the admission test.
Contracted and dated, so it belongs — on its effective date, not today.
As a subtraction, dated to the end of the term. Leaving it out is the most common way CMRR is inflated.
Same test, same direction. Committed revenue moves both ways.
No signature, no admission. This is pipeline with good manners.
The single biggest source of overstated CMRR. An auto-renewing contract inside its notice window is already in MRR; an unsigned renewal of an expiring term is a forecast.
Weighting is what makes a forecast a forecast. A CMRR with a probability column is a sales projection.
Only the committed floor is committed. Overage is real revenue, but it is not promised in writing.
Not recurring, so it is outside every recurring-revenue metric including this one.
How founders actually use CMRR
For hiring, CMRR answers the question MRR cannot: can the signed book support this salary by the time the person is productive? A role starting in three months should be costed against the committed MRR of that month, from the bridge, not against the headline figure and not against today.
For runway, CMRR gives the honest version. Runway built on current MRR ignores a cancellation you already know about, and a runway that ignores served notice is the kind that ends abruptly. Running the calculation on the committed line of the month in question is slower and correct.
For board and investor reporting, showing MRR and CMRR side by side with the bridge between them is a credibility move. It demonstrates that you know which of your revenue is contracted and which is hoped for — and it makes the one number that could be spun the one number you have already reconciled in public.
For capital planning, CMRR is the figure that decides whether financing is worth taking. Non-dilutive capital is repaid out of recurring revenue, so what matters is not the revenue you might win but the revenue that is already committed to arrive during the repayment period.
How a recurring-revenue lender reads it
A lender underwriting recurring revenue does not take a CMRR figure on trust, and you should not expect them to. They validate it against the systems that produced it: the billing platform for what is actually invoicing, the accounting ledger for what has been collected, and the contracts themselves for anything claimed as committed but not yet billing.
Three things get discounted quickly. Revenue claimed as committed without a countersigned contract behind it. Expansion dated to a renewal that has not been agreed. And a book where a large share of the committed increase sits with one or two customers, because concentration turns a committed number into a single-counterparty bet.
The mirror image also holds: known churn you have disclosed is weighted heavily, because it is the part of the picture a founder has the clearest incentive to leave out. Disclosing it is what makes the rest of the number believable.
This is why connecting billing and accounting data changes the conversation. It replaces a worksheet you built with figures a lender can verify, which is a different exercise from arguing about a spreadsheet.
CMRR is not recognized revenue
CMRR is a management metric. It does not appear in your financial statements and it follows neither ASC 606 nor IFRS 15. Revenue recognition asks when a performance obligation is satisfied; CMRR asks what is contractually promised to recur. A signed contract starting in three months contributes nothing to recognized revenue today and its full monthly value to CMRR at its effective date.
Keep them apart in how you report, too. Calling CMRR "revenue" in a board deck invites exactly one question, and the answer — that it includes revenue you have not earned yet — is much better given before it is asked.
See what your connected
recurring revenue can support.
A worksheet is your best estimate of what is committed. Connecting your billing and accounting data replaces it with figures an underwriter can verify — which is the difference between arguing about a spreadsheet and getting a number back. Founderpath funds bootstrapped B2B SaaS from $10K MRR, with no equity and no board seats.
Your committed book read from billing data, not a spreadsheet you maintain.
Known churn counts against you either way — disclosing it is what makes the rest credible.
Repayment sized against recurring revenue that is already under contract.
Founderpath starts at $10K MRR of recurring software revenue.
Every recurring-revenue number, grouped by the decision it informs.
Compute the current-period MRR this bridge starts from.
Annualise either basis — say which one you used.
How lenders turn contracted recurring revenue into capital.
What a committed revenue base can responsibly service.
Carry the committed bridge into a full plan.
Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue (CMRR) is your current MRR adjusted for every contract change that is already signed and dated: plus new contracts that have not started yet, plus contracted expansions, minus agreed downgrades, minus cancellations where notice has already been served. It answers what your recurring revenue will be once the paperwork you have already signed takes effect, rather than what is billing today. The admission test is strict — a signed contract with an effective date. Verbal commitments, unsigned renewals and weighted pipeline do not qualify.
CMRR = current MRR + signed new MRR + contracted expansion MRR − contracted downgrade MRR − known churn MRR. Start with the recurring revenue billing this month, then apply every signed contract event on its effective date. For example, $42,000 of current MRR plus $6,200 of signed new business and $1,600 of contracted expansion, less a $900 agreed downgrade and $2,100 of served notice, gives a CMRR of $46,800. Build it as a dated bridge rather than a single sum, because the month each event lands in is what makes the number usable for hiring and runway decisions.
MRR is what is billing right now. CMRR is what will be billing once already-signed contract changes take effect. If you have three signed contracts starting next quarter, they are absent from MRR and present in CMRR. If a customer has served notice, MRR still counts them and CMRR does not. The gap between the two is the portion of your recurring revenue that exists contractually but not yet financially, which is why CMRR can be lower than MRR as well as higher.
In SaaS, CMRR is the forward-looking cousin of MRR used for planning rather than reporting. Subscription businesses routinely sign contracts that start weeks or months later, so the recurring revenue on the books at any moment understates or overstates what is actually committed. SaaS founders use CMRR to decide whether the signed book supports a hire, to build a runway that accounts for churn they already know about, and to show investors and lenders which portion of revenue is contracted rather than forecast.
No, and this is the most common way a CMRR figure gets inflated. A contract that auto-renews and is still inside its notice window is already counted in current MRR and needs no adjustment. A contract reaching the end of a fixed term with no signed renewal is a forecast, however likely it feels. Including it converts CMRR from a record of signed commitments into a sales projection, which defeats the purpose of the metric and is the first thing an underwriter will strip out.
No. ARR is an annualisation, CMRR is a monthly figure with a commitment test. Multiplying CMRR by twelve gives committed ARR, which is a legitimate number but is not the same as annualising current MRR — and both get called "ARR" in practice. If you report an ARR figure, say which monthly number it came from. A committed ARR presented next to a current ARR without that distinction is how two people end up arguing about a company’s size using the same word.
No. CMRR is a management metric and appears nowhere in your financial statements. Revenue recognition under ASC 606 or IFRS 15 turns on when a performance obligation is satisfied, so a contract signed today and starting in three months contributes nothing to recognized revenue now. CMRR credits it in full at its effective date. Keep the two clearly separated in board reporting: describing CMRR as revenue invites the question of how much of it you have actually earned.
Recurring-revenue lenders validate CMRR against source systems rather than a spreadsheet. They reconcile the billing platform for what is actually invoicing, the accounting ledger for what has been collected, and the underlying contracts for anything claimed as committed but not yet billing. Commitments without a countersigned contract are discounted, expansion dated to an unagreed renewal is removed, and heavy customer concentration in the committed increase is treated as a risk. Disclosed churn, by contrast, strengthens the read, because it is the part a founder is most tempted to omit.
Wondering what your committed revenue is worth?
See what you qualify for