Churn Rate
In one line
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who leave or cancel during a given period — effectively the mirror image of retention.
Going deeper
Churn rate is calculated as the share of customers who leave during a window, divided by the customers you started the window with. It is the mirror of retention — retention plus churn equals 100% — though in SaaS user-count churn and revenue (MRR) churn diverge and need to be reported separately.
These days net revenue retention (NRR) often outranks churn as the headline number. Even with some customers leaving, expansion in the remaining base can push NRR above 100%. Strong SaaS businesses typically sit somewhere between 110% and 130%.
Reducing churn rarely starts at signup. The most useful work happens around the moment users go quiet — predictive models that flag dropping usage, plus targeted win-back campaigns on the cancellation page.
Related terms
Retention
Retention is the share of users who continue to use or purchase from your product over time after their first touch — a primary signal of long-term product health.
MarketingLTV
Lifetime value (LTV) is the estimated total revenue — or profit — a single customer is expected to generate over the entire relationship with your business.
MarketingCohort Analysis
Cohort analysis groups users by a shared starting characteristic — usually signup week — and tracks their behaviour over time so you can see how each cohort evolves.
MarketingCAC
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total marketing and sales spend required to win one new paying customer.
MarketingNorth Star Metric
A north star metric (NSM) is the single number that best captures the core value your product delivers to customers, used to align decisions across the whole company.
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