Churn Rate Calculator
Customer churn and retention for a month, quarter or year from the customers you started with and lost, revenue (MRR) churn, and the matching monthly and annual rates.
Result…
How it's calculated
Churn = customers lost ÷ customers at start × 100 Retention = 100% − churn Monthly from a k-month period: m = 1 − (1 − churn)^(1/k) Annual = 1 − (1 − m)^12 Revenue churn = MRR lost ÷ MRR at start × 100
Churn rate is the share of the customers you had at the start of a period who left during it. New customers signed in the period are left out of the rate, otherwise fast growth would hide losses. Monthly and annual churn are not 12 times apart: losing 3% a month compounds to about 30.6% a year, because each month's loss comes from a smaller group. Revenue churn counts the monthly recurring revenue lost to cancellations and downgrades, which can differ a lot from customer churn when big and small accounts leave at different rates. For revenue churn net of upgrades, see the net revenue retention calculator.
Your numbers, step by step
About the Churn Rate calculator
This churn rate calculator works out the share of customers who left during a month, quarter or year, measured against the customers you had at the start. It also gives the retention rate, the customers left at the end once new sign-ups are added, and the average customer lifetime the churn implies. Because churn compounds, it converts between periods properly: a monthly rate becomes an annual one with 1 − (1 − monthly)^12, not by multiplying by 12. Add your monthly recurring revenue at the start and the MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades to see revenue churn alongside customer churn. Subscription businesses, membership clubs and online shops tracking repeat customers use it for monthly reporting. The working is shown line by line, so you can check which numbers went in.
How to use it
- Pick the “Period” your figures cover: month, quarter or year.
- Enter the “Customers at the start of the period” and the “Customers lost during the period”.
- Optionally enter “New customers gained” to see the customer count at the end.
- For revenue churn, enter the “MRR at the start” and the “MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades”.
- Read the monthly or annual equivalent to compare with figures reported over a different period.
Worked example
A service starts the month with 1,200 customers and loses 54 of them: churn = 54 ÷ 1,200 = 4.5%, so retention is 95.5%. With 80 new sign-ups it ends the month on 1,200 − 54 + 80 = 1,226 customers. Held for a year, 4.5% a month compounds to 1 − 0.955^12 = 42.45% annual churn, and the average customer stays about 1 ÷ 0.045 = 22.2 months. Of 60,000 MRR at the start, 2,100 was lost, a revenue churn of 3.5%.
Updated
Questions people ask
How do you calculate churn rate?
Divide the customers lost during the period by the customers you had at the start, then multiply by 100. 30 lost out of 600 is 5% churn.
How do I convert monthly churn to annual churn?
Use 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12. A 2% monthly churn is about 21.5% a year, not 24%, because each month's loss comes from a smaller group.
Should new customers be included in churn?
Not in the rate itself. Counting customers who joined during the period in the base would make fast-growing businesses look as if they lose fewer customers than they do.
What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?
Customer churn counts accounts, revenue churn counts the recurring revenue they took with them. If larger accounts leave, revenue churn is higher than customer churn. For churn net of upgrades, use the net revenue retention calculator.
Why is my churn rate different from my billing tool's?
Tools differ in the base they use (start, average or end of period), in how they count paused or reactivated accounts and in the period length. Use one definition consistently and compare like with like.