Churn Rate & Retention Calculator

Calculate churn, retention and cohort revenue survival. See the impact of reducing churn by even 1%.

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Cohort Survival

Values

Why Churn Is the Silent Killer

Acquiring a new customer costs 5–7x more than retaining one. A 5% churn rate means you lose 46% of customers over 12 months. Two SaaS companies with identical acquisition rates but different churn rates have radically different businesses.

The Formulas

  • Churn rate = Churned ÷ Starting customers × 100
  • Retention rate = 100 − Churn rate
  • Average lifetime = 1 ÷ Churn rate (in months)
  • Cohort survival = Starting × (1 − churn)^months
  • LTV impact = ARPU × Lifetime

Benchmarks

Business typeGood monthly churn
Enterprise SaaS0.5–1%
SMB SaaS1.5–3%
Consumer subscription3–5%
E-commerce (repeat)8–12%

How to Reduce Churn

  1. Onboarding — 70% of churn happens in the first 90 days. Fix onboarding before anything else.
  2. Activation metrics — find the moment of value (first success). Track it obsessively.
  3. Proactive outreach — check-ins at 30, 60, 90 days. At-risk customers need intervention.
  4. Exit surveys — ask every churned customer why. Patterns emerge within 20 responses.
  5. Involuntary churn — failed payments cause 20–40% of SaaS churn. Fix dunning.

Churn FAQ

What's a good churn rate?

Enterprise SaaS: 0.5–1%/mo. SMB SaaS: 1.5–3%/mo. Consumer subscription: 3–5%/mo. E-commerce: higher is normal.

Should I measure customer churn or revenue churn?

Both. Customer churn counts logos; revenue churn tracks dollars. If downgrades are common, revenue churn reveals what customer churn hides.

What's involuntary churn?

Churn caused by failed payments, expired cards, or declined transactions — not the customer actively cancelling. 20–40% of SaaS churn is involuntary. Dunning emails + retry logic can recover 40%+.

How do I improve retention in month 1?

Onboarding. Get the user to their first "aha moment" as fast as possible. Time-to-value under 10 minutes is the target for most SaaS.