Reading MRR data correctly

Dollars, not cents

This trips people up because many payment systems store amounts in cents. TrustMRR does not. If a startup shows revenue_mrr of 4682, that is $4,682 per month, not $46.82.

// WRONG - TrustMRR values are already dollars
const mrr = row.revenue_mrr / 100; // 100x too small

// RIGHT - use the value as-is
const mrr = row.revenue_mrr; // dollars

Where the units bite hardest

The dollars-not-cents rule matters most the moment you leave the interface and touch the raw fields yourself - an export, a spreadsheet, or a direct query. Inside TrustMRR the values are already formatted for you; the risk appears when you reformat them and reflexively apply a cents-to-dollars conversion that does not belong here.

• Exports - treat every revenue column as dollars the moment it lands in your spreadsheet.
• Manual multiples - divide asking_price by an annualized profit in dollars, with no /100 anywhere.
• Charts - plot the raw values; a stray divide-by-100 silently shrinks the whole axis 100x.
• Comparisons - when you line a price up against MRR, confirm both are in the same dollar units first.

Read the distribution, not just the average

The average MRR is $4,682, but the median tracked SaaS earns roughly $7 MRR across the 3,478 revenue-positive startups. Most products make almost nothing because they skip validation. If you quote the average as though it were typical, you will badly overstate what a normal company earns.

A checklist before you trust a number

1. 1

   Confirm the units

   The value is in US dollars. There is no cents conversion, so no divide-by-100.

2. 2

   Ask which statistic it is

   Is it an average or a median? The $4,682 average and the ~$7 median describe different companies.

3. 3

   Bracket it with percentiles

   Use p25 and p75 to see the realistic middle band rather than judging by a single point.

4. 4

   Factor in margin

   Read the revenue against 60-80% software margins before deciding whether a number is small or healthy.