Business & SaaS

Churn Rate Calculator

What this does

Measure the share of customers lost over a period and see the average customer lifetime it implies.

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Calculator inputs

How to use it

Using the churn rate calculator

  1. 01

    Pick a measurement period

    Match your billing cycle; monthly for most subscriptions, annual for enterprise contracts.

  2. 02

    Enter starting customers and losses

    Count cancellations and non-renewals during the period; exclude pauses if you reactivate them reliably.

  3. 03

    Read churn and lifetime

    The lifetime row converts churn into the average months a customer remains, the number LTV models need.

Good to know

Small churn differences compound brutally

At 3% monthly churn the average customer lasts ~33 months; at 7%, barely 14. Because acquisition cost must be repaid out of each customer’s lifetime, halving churn roughly doubles what you can afford to spend to win a customer; often a bigger lever than any marketing optimization.

Good churn benchmarks

  • Consumer subscription apps often see 5–10% monthly churn.
  • SMB SaaS performs well at 2–4% monthly.
  • Enterprise B2B targets under 1–2% monthly (under 10–15% annually).

Early-stage startups naturally churn higher; what matters is the trend as you tighten onboarding and fit.

How it's calculated

The math behind this calculator

Churn rate = Customers lost / Starting customers Avg lifetime (months) ≈ 100 / churn %

Customer churn is the fraction of your starting customer base that cancels during the period. Its reciprocal has a powerful interpretation: if 5% leave monthly, the average customer stays about 20 months, because 100 ÷ 5 = 20. That lifetime figure feeds directly into lifetime-value calculations and sets a ceiling on sustainable acquisition spending.

Assumptions & limitations

  • Measured on customer counts, though the same formula applies to revenue churn (MRR lost ÷ starting MRR).
  • Period length matches your billing cycle; monthly churn and annual churn differ enormously.
  • Cancellations happen uniformly through the period.

Worked example

Losing 45 of 900 customers in a month is a 5% monthly churn rate; implying the average customer sticks around about 20 months.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is a good churn rate?
Depends on model: consumer apps tolerate high single digits monthly, while B2B SaaS aims for low single digits. Compare within your segment, and watch direction of travel more than the absolute level.
How is customer churn different from revenue churn?
Customer churn counts accounts lost; revenue churn counts MRR lost. Losing many small customers looks worse on one and better on the other; track both.
Why does lifetime equal 100 ÷ churn?
If churn is a constant probability p per month, expected tenure is its reciprocal: 1/p periods. At 5% churn, 1/0.05 = 20 months.

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