Churn Rate Calculator

Monthly & Annual Churn · Net Revenue Retention · Customer Lifetime

Monthly Churn Rate
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Enter your customer or revenue data
Monthly Churn
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Annual Churn
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Net Revenue Retention
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Customer Lifetime
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Revenue Churn
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Monthly Retention
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Customer Decay Curve (24 Months)

Chart: customer decay curve (24 months).
Churn = Lost ÷ Start
Annual = 1-(1-m)^12
NRR = (Start+Exp-Con-Churn) ÷ Start
Lifetime = 1 ÷ Churn%
Current
Your Churn Rate
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Lifetime: —
Target
−2 percentage points
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Lifetime: —
Best Case
50% churn reduction
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Lifetime: —

Sensitivity Matrix — Churn Rate by Customers Lost × Starting Customers

Heat map: green = lower churn, red = higher churn

Churn Reduction Impact on Customer Lifetime

Monthly Churn Annual Churn Customer Lifetime Change vs Current

Monthly Churn Rate Benchmarks by Segment

Chart: monthly churn rate benchmarks by segment.

Retention Rate by Category

Chart: retention rate by category.

Industry Churn & Retention Benchmarks

Segment Typical Monthly Churn Annual Churn NRR Benchmark Avg Customer Lifetime
Consumer SaaS (B2C)3–8%30–65%80–95%12–33 mo
SMB SaaS1.5–4%16–40%90–100%25–67 mo
Mid-Market SaaS0.75–2%9–22%100–110%50–133 mo
Enterprise SaaS0.25–1%3–11%110–130%100–400 mo
Usage-Based SaaS1–3%11–30%100–120%33–100 mo
E-commerce Subscription4–10%40–72%80–90%10–25 mo
Your Company — — — —
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How to Use This Calculator

1

Enter Subscriber Data

Input the number of customers at the start of the period and the number who cancelled or did not renew.

2

Set Time Period

Select the measurement period — monthly, quarterly, or annually.

3

Analyze Churn

Review your churn rate, retention rate, customer half-life, and projected revenue impact over 12 months.

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Formula & Methodology

Customer Churn Rate
Churn Rate = Customers Lost / Customers at Start of Period
The percentage of customers who leave during a given time period.
Revenue Churn Rate
Revenue Churn = MRR Lost / MRR at Start of Period
Accounts for the dollar value of lost customers, not just count.
Customer Half-Life
Half-Life = ln(0.5) / ln(1 − Monthly Churn Rate)
The number of months until half your customer base has churned.

About this calculation · Accuracy & Methodology

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Key Terms Explained

Customer Churn The rate at which customers cancel or fail to renew their subscription.
Revenue Churn MRR or ARR lost from cancellations, downgrades, or contractions.
Net Revenue Churn Revenue churn offset by expansion revenue (upgrades, cross-sells). Can be negative if expansion exceeds churn.
Retention Rate 1 minus churn rate — the percentage of customers retained over a period.
Cohort Retention Tracking retention for a specific group of customers acquired at the same time.
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Real-World Examples

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SaaS SMB Product

Start: 2,400 customers, Lost: 108 in one month

Result
Monthly churn: 4.5%. Annual churn: ~42%. Half-life: 15 months.
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Understanding and Reducing Churn

The Compounding Cost of Churn

Churn compounds like interest in reverse. At 5% monthly churn, you lose 46% of customers annually. To merely maintain your customer count, you need to acquire new customers equal to nearly half your base every year — before you can even begin to grow. Reducing churn from 5% to 3% monthly improves annual retention from 54% to 69%, dramatically reducing the acquisition burden.

Identifying Churn Signals

Most churned customers show warning signs 30-60 days before cancelling: declining login frequency, reduced feature usage, support tickets increasing, and billing failures. Build a health score that tracks these signals and trigger proactive outreach when the score drops. Companies with proactive churn prevention save 20-30% of at-risk customers.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good churn rate for SaaS?+

Churn benchmarks vary by segment. Enterprise SaaS: under 5% annual (0.4% monthly) is excellent. Mid-market: 5–10% annual is healthy. SMB SaaS: 10–25% annual is typical. Consumer SaaS: 25–40% annual is common. OpenView Partners data shows median net revenue retention of 106% for top-quartile public SaaS companies, implying strong expansion revenue offsetting gross churn.

What is the difference between gross and net churn?+

Gross revenue churn counts only MRR lost from cancellations and downgrades, with no offset for expansion. Net revenue churn subtracts expansion MRR from churn MRR. Net churn can be negative if expansion exceeds churn — a concept called net negative churn. Investors focus on net revenue retention (NRR) because it captures the full compounding picture of what happens to revenue from an existing customer cohort over time.

Can you have negative churn?+

Yes — net negative churn is when expansion MRR from existing customers (seat additions, upsells, usage growth) exceeds gross MRR churn from cancellations and downgrades. If you start a month with $100k MRR, lose $3k to cancellations, but gain $5k from expansions among remaining customers, your net churn is −2%. This is the most powerful growth dynamic in SaaS because existing customers pay for future growth.

How do you measure churn by cohort?+

Group customers by their acquisition month (e.g., all customers who signed up in January 2024). Track what percentage of that cohort remains active and what MRR they generate at months 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24. Plot retention curves for each cohort. Improving cohort retention — flattening the retention curve — is the highest-value retention work. Cohort analysis also reveals whether product improvements are actually reducing churn over time.

What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?+

Customer churn measures the percentage of customers who cancel, regardless of their plan size. Revenue churn (gross MRR churn) measures the percentage of revenue lost. They diverge when you have a mix of plan sizes: if your churning customers are smaller accounts, revenue churn will be lower than customer churn. Enterprise-focused companies especially track revenue churn and NRR because losing one large customer has outsized revenue impact.

How do I reduce SaaS churn?+

The highest-impact levers are: (1) Improve onboarding — most churn happens within the first 90 days before customers reach their "aha moment." (2) Build a customer health score using product usage signals and trigger proactive outreach when scores drop. (3) Offer annual contracts — customers who pay annually churn 3–5x less than monthly subscribers. (4) Identify and fix churn triggers using exit surveys and customer success calls. (5) Segment by cohort to find which acquisition channels or use cases retain best.

Churn Rate Benchmarks (Monthly)

SegmentGoodAveragePoor
Enterprise SaaS< 0.5%0.5-1.0%> 1.5%
Mid-Market SaaS< 1.0%1.0-2.0%> 3.0%
SMB SaaS< 3.0%3.0-5.0%> 7.0%
Consumer Subscription< 4.0%4.0-8.0%> 10.0%
Mobile App< 5.0%5.0-10.0%> 15.0%