Upsell Logos

What it measures

A pure count — a tally of distinct customer organizations whose recurring revenue this period is higher than last period. It strips away deal size to show the raw breadth of customers deepening their relationship. Each distinct legal entity is one logo regardless of how much it expanded or how many products it holds. New logos and reactivated accounts are excluded; only customers who already had positive MRR in the prior period and grew it are counted.

Why it matters

Upsell Logos is the heartbeat of a land-and-expand motion. A business expanding 50 logos a quarter signals product stickiness and compounding value; one expanding 5 is likely facing adoption or fit challenges. Unlike revenue metrics, logo expansion is hard to flatter with a single large deal — it shows whether you are winning more wallet share across the base you already own. Boards care because broad logo expansion is what sustainably pushes net revenue retention above 100% and lowers churn risk relative to acquisition-only growth.

How to read it

Read Upsell Logos as a trend and as a share of your existing base, never as a bare number. Five expansion logos in a 100-logo base (5%) is a very different signal from five in a 20-logo base (25%). Compare it to new logos and churned logos: if you are adding 20 new logos but only expanding 10, acquisition is outpacing the deepening of existing relationships. Pair it with Upsell MRR to see whether expansion is broad (many small upgrades) or narrow (a few large deals) — if Upsell MRR rises but the logo count is flat, your expansion is concentrated in a handful of accounts.

What good looks like

Watch-outs

• Confusing Upsell Logos with Upsell MRR. Ten logos expanding by $100K each and 100 logos expanding by $10K each carry the same total expansion revenue but signal vastly different adoption breadth — always report both the count and the dollars.
• Counting new logos as expansion. If a customer had zero MRR in the prior period, they are a new logo, not an upsell. The prior-MRR-greater-than-zero rule isolates true existing-customer growth and keeps acquisition separate.
• Counting reactivations as expansion. A previously-churned account that returns is reactivation (or new), not upsell — folding it in overstates how much your active base is deepening.
• Ignoring negative deltas. A customer who goes from $1K to $500 is a downsell, not an upsell — counting them would mask whether your base is healthy.
• Counting transactions instead of balances. If a customer upgrades mid-month and downgrades before period-end, use the net delta at the month-end balance to decide whether they are an upsell logo; counting every upgrade event inflates the count.

Worked example