SaaS Rule of 30 Cohort Calculator (Growth + Retention)
Enter your YoY growth rate, Net Revenue Retention (NRR), and profit margin to calculate your Rule of 30 score. Get an instant health verdict — healthy, at-risk, or failing — with benchmarks from top SaaS companies.
What Is the SaaS Rule of 30?
The Rule of 30 is an extended SaaS health benchmark that combines three key metrics: YoY growth rate + Net Revenue Retention (NRR) + operating profit margin. A sum of 30 or more indicates a fundamentally healthy business. Unlike the Rule of 40 (which ignores retention), the Rule of 30 explicitly rewards companies that grow revenue from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, and usage expansion. Source: Bessemer Venture Partners State of the Cloud 2024 report. Last updated: May 2026.
Rule of 30 vs Rule of 40 — Benchmarks Compared
| Company Type | Growth Rate | NRR | Margin | Rule of 30 | Rule of 40 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elite (Snowflake-tier) | 60% | 150% | -20% | 190 | 40 |
| Strong growth SaaS | 40% | 115% | -5% | 150 | 35 |
| Healthy, profitable | 20% | 105% | 15% | 140 | 35 |
| At-risk (slow + churning) | 15% | 85% | -10% | 90 | 5 |
| Failing benchmark | 5% | 80% | -20% | 65 | -15 |
How to Improve Your Rule of 30 Score
The three levers map directly to the formula: (1) Growth — improve top-of-funnel (SEO, partnerships, PLG) and shorten sales cycles; (2) NRR — launch upsell tiers, usage-based pricing, or annual billing incentives, and reduce churn through onboarding and success programs; (3) Margin — optimize COGS through infrastructure efficiency (move from EC2 to spot instances, renegotiate SaaS vendor contracts) or reduce G&A overhead. Companies at 20-25 should prioritize NRR improvements first: each point of NRR improvement compounds across the entire customer base and requires no additional sales headcount.