Churn Rate Calculator
Enter how many customers you had at the start and end of a period and how many you gained to get your churn rate, retention rate and customers lost, converted to monthly and annual figures.
How many of today's customers remain?
| After | Still active | Of today's | Cumulative churn |
|---|
Monthly ↔ annual churn converter
How to use the Churn Rate Calculator
- Enter customers at the start of the period, for example on the 1st of the month.
- Enter customers at the end of the period and the number of new customers gained during it.
- Choose the period length: week, month, quarter or year.
- Press Calculate churn to see churn, retention, customers lost and the monthly and annual equivalents.
- Use the converter to turn any monthly churn rate into annual churn, or the other way round.
Churn and retention formulas
| Metric | Formula |
|---|---|
| Customers lost | Start + new − end |
| Churn rate | Customers lost ÷ customers at start × 100 |
| Retention rate | (End − new) ÷ start × 100 = 100% − churn |
| Monthly → annual churn | 1 − (1 − monthly)12 |
| Annual → monthly churn | 1 − (1 − annual)1/12 |
| Average customer lifetime | 1 ÷ monthly churn (months) |
Worked example
A software company starts March with 1,000 customers, signs up 100 new customers and ends the month with 950.
- Customers lost = 1,000 + 100 − 950 = 150.
- Churn rate = 150 ÷ 1,000 = 15% for the month.
- Retention rate = (950 − 100) ÷ 1,000 = 85%.
- If this continued, annual churn = 1 − 0.8512 ≈ 85.8%, and the average customer would stay 1 ÷ 0.15 ≈ 6.7 months.
Monthly vs. annual churn
| Monthly churn | Annual churn | Average lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5% | 5.8% | 200 months |
| 1% | 11.4% | 100 months |
| 2% | 21.5% | 50 months |
| 3% | 30.6% | 33 months |
| 5% | 46.0% | 20 months |
| 7% | 58.1% | 14 months |
| 10% | 71.8% | 10 months |
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate churn rate?
Churn rate = customers lost during the period ÷ customers at the start of the period × 100. Customers lost = start + new − end. With 1,000 customers at the start, 100 new and 950 at the end, you lost 150, so churn is 15%.
How do you calculate customer retention rate?
Retention rate = (customers at end − new customers) ÷ customers at start × 100. Using the same example, (950 − 100) ÷ 1,000 = 85%. Churn and retention always add up to 100%.
How do I convert monthly churn to annual churn?
Annual churn = 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12. A 5% monthly churn is about 46% a year, not 60%, because each month you lose 5% of a smaller base.
How do I convert annual churn to monthly churn?
Monthly churn = 1 − (1 − annual churn)^(1/12). For 30% annual churn that is about 2.93% a month.
What is a good churn rate?
It depends on the business. Many B2B SaaS companies aim for under 1% monthly (about 5 to 7% annual) churn for enterprise customers, while consumer subscriptions often see 3% to 8% a month. Comparing against your own past periods is usually most useful.
Why do new customers not count in churn?
Churn measures how many existing customers you keep. Adding new customers to the denominator would hide losses during fast growth, so the standard formula divides by the customers at the start only.
What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?
Customer churn counts lost accounts. Revenue churn measures lost recurring revenue, including downgrades, and can be offset by upgrades to give net revenue retention. This calculator measures customer churn.