Calculate your customer churn rate by entering your customers at start of period, new customers acquired, and customers at end of period. You'll get your churn rate percentage, total customers lost, and customer lifetime — all the key retention metrics your business needs to track growth.
Churn Rate
--
Customers Lost
--
Customers Retained
--
Retention Rate
--
Customer Lifetime
--
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using your product or service during a given period. It is a key metric for subscription and SaaS businesses to measure customer retention and satisfaction. A high churn rate signals that customers are leaving faster than they are being replaced, which can threaten long-term revenue growth.
The churn rate formula is: Churn Rate = (Customers Lost ÷ Customers at Start) × 100. Customers lost is calculated by taking your starting customer count, adding new customers acquired, and subtracting your ending customer count. For example, if you started with 500 customers, gained 50, and ended with 480, you lost 70 customers — giving you a 14% churn rate.
A good churn rate varies by industry and business model. For SaaS companies, monthly churn rates below 2–3% are generally considered healthy, while annual churn rates under 5–7% are acceptable. Consumer apps and e-commerce businesses tend to see higher churn. The lower your churn rate, the better — even small improvements can have a significant impact on revenue over time.
Churn rate and retention rate are inverse metrics. Churn rate measures the percentage of customers you lost, while retention rate measures the percentage you kept. If your churn rate is 8%, your retention rate is 92%. Both numbers come from the same data, but retention rate is often used in positive reporting while churn rate highlights the scale of customer loss.
Customer churn tracks the number of customers who leave, while revenue churn (also called MRR churn) tracks the amount of recurring revenue lost. A small number of high-value customers leaving can cause significant revenue churn even if your customer churn rate looks low. Tracking both gives you a fuller picture of business health.
Most businesses calculate churn rate monthly, quarterly, and annually. Monthly calculations help you spot trends early and react quickly to sudden spikes. Quarterly and annual views smooth out seasonal variations and provide a more strategic picture. The right frequency depends on your business model — subscription businesses typically benefit from monthly tracking.
Customer lifetime is the average length of time a customer continues using your product before churning. It is calculated as: Customer Lifetime = 1 ÷ Churn Rate. For example, a monthly churn rate of 5% (0.05) gives an average customer lifetime of 20 months. This metric is closely tied to Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which estimates the total revenue a customer generates over that period.
Reducing churn starts with understanding why customers leave — through exit surveys, support ticket analysis, and usage data. Common strategies include improving onboarding so customers reach value faster, offering proactive customer support, creating loyalty programs, and regularly gathering feedback to fix pain points. Identifying at-risk customers early and reaching out before they cancel is one of the highest-impact tactics.