Churn Rate Calculator: Customers Lost as a Share of Start
Work out a customer churn rate — the share of customers who cancelled or did not renew during a period — with the retention rate shown alongside.
Adjust the inputs and select Calculate for a full breakdown.
Compare Common Scenarios
How the numbers shift across typical situations for this calculator:
| Scenario | Churn rate | Retention rate |
|---|---|---|
| 30 of 600 lost | 5.00% | 95.00% |
| 12 of 400 lost | 3.00% | 97.00% |
| 90 of 1,200 lost | 7.50% | 92.50% |
| 5 of 250 lost | 2.00% | 98.00% |
How This Calculator Works
Enter the number of customers lost during the period and the customer base at the start. The calculator divides one by the other and multiplies by 100 to give the churn rate, then shows its complement — the retention rate.
The Formula
Part as a Percentage of a Whole
Part is the portion, Whole is the total it belongs to
Worked Example
Losing 30 customers from a starting base of 600 is a monthly churn rate of 5%, with retention at 95%. A 5% monthly churn implies losing roughly 46% of the cohort over a year, even with no growth in the meantime.
Key Insight
Churn rate is a velocity measure — a small percentage compounds quickly. A 5% monthly churn rate is the same engine as a 46% annual churn, so a number that sounds modest at one cadence can be ruinous at another.
Logo churn vs revenue churn — the two numbers tell different stories
Logo churn (also called customer churn) measures the count of customers lost. Revenue churn (also called dollar churn) measures the revenue lost. A SaaS business with 100 customers, of whom 5 churn in a month — but the 5 are the smallest customers contributing only 2% of revenue — has 5% logo churn but only 2% revenue churn. A business where the 5 lost customers were the largest, contributing 20% of revenue, has the same 5% logo churn but 20% revenue churn. The first is healthy growth; the second is an existential problem.
For SMB SaaS, logo and revenue churn typically run within a few percentage points of each other. For enterprise SaaS with a few large customers, the two numbers can diverge by 10-30 percentage points — and revenue churn is the metric that matters for business sustainability. Always report both, with revenue churn as the headline.
Gross vs net churn: gross dollar churn measures revenue lost from customers who fully cancelled or downgraded. Net dollar churn nets expansion revenue against gross churn — if existing customers expand by 15% and churn 10%, net churn is negative (i.e., net retention is 105%). Healthy SaaS shows net dollar retention (NDR) ≥ 110% — see also the ARR growth and MRR change calculators on this site.
Why churn benchmarks vary 10× by segment
SMB SaaS routinely shows 4-7% monthly gross logo churn (40-60% annual) because small businesses themselves churn — they go out of business, change ownership, restructure operations. The lower limit on SMB churn is set by the SMB attrition rate (BLS data suggests ~10-12% of U.S. small businesses close each year). Even a perfectly retained SMB customer base would churn at this rate due to customer business closures.
Enterprise SaaS shows 5-10% annual gross logo churn for healthy businesses. Enterprise customers don't churn for the same reasons as SMBs — they churn for renewal-cycle competitive losses, internal sponsor changes, or strategic platform consolidation. Multi-year contracts reduce churn nominally but only delay it. The true measure is gross dollar churn against contracts up for renewal in the period (renewal-rate basis), not gross dollar churn against the total ARR base.
Consumer subscription churn varies by category. Streaming (Netflix, Spotify) runs 2-4% monthly. Dating apps run 30-50% monthly (high natural cycle as users find or lose interest). Fitness apps run 10-15% monthly. The benchmark for any consumer subscription should be drawn from peers in the same vertical, not generic SaaS data.
Churn drives lifetime value — the 1/churn shortcut and where it breaks
Churn is the single most powerful lever on customer lifetime value because average customer lifetime, under a constant churn assumption, equals 1 divided by the periodic churn rate. At 5% monthly churn the expected lifetime is 1/0.05 = 20 months; cut churn to 2.5% and lifetime doubles to 40 months, doubling lifetime value from the same acquisition spend. This non-linear leverage is why retention work usually beats acquisition work on return: a one-point reduction in churn compounds across the entire surviving base every period, whereas a one-point lift in acquisition only adds a single cohort. When you pair this with CAC payback, the rule of thumb is that LTV should be at least 3× CAC for a sustainable unit economic model.
The 1/churn shortcut assumes a memoryless, constant hazard rate, and that assumption is the main pitfall. Real churn is front-loaded: cancellation risk is highest in the first few billing cycles and falls as tenure rises, so a single blended churn rate overstates losses for seasoned cohorts and understates them for new ones. Use cohort-based (survival-curve) retention rather than a flat rate when computing LTV for decision-making, and always state whether the churn figure is gross or net — using net dollar churn (which can be near zero or negative for expansion-led businesses) in a 1/churn formula produces an infinite or meaningless lifetime. For LTV, use gross revenue churn at the cohort level.
Annual gross dollar churn benchmarks by SaaS segment
Industry annual gross dollar churn benchmarks from Recurly, ChartMogul and SaaS Capital data. Companies above the bottom-quartile churn line require careful diagnostic — segment, cohort, and product-fit analysis.
| Segment | Top quartile | Median | Bottom quartile |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMB self-serve (PLG) | <12% | 15-22% | >30% |
| SMB inside sales | <8% | 12-18% | >25% |
| Mid-Market | <5% | 7-10% | >15% |
| Enterprise (annual contracts) | <3% | 5-8% | >12% |
| Enterprise (multi-year) | <2% | 3-5% | >8% |
Logo churn is typically higher than dollar churn by 2-5 percentage points (smallest accounts churn at higher rates than largest). Net dollar churn — after netting expansion against gross churn — is the better health metric for established SaaS businesses; aim for ≤ 0% (i.e., net retention ≥ 100%).
Frequently Asked Questions
How is churn rate calculated?
Divide customers lost during the period by customers at the start of the period, then multiply by 100. Thirty losses from a base of 600 is a 5% churn rate.
What is retention rate?
It is the share of the starting base that stayed — 100% minus the churn rate. The calculator shows it as the complement.
Should I count new customers won during the period?
No. Standard churn uses the starting base only; counting new wins would let growth mask cancellations and obscure the real attrition rate.
Monthly or annual churn — which to use?
Monthly is more responsive and the standard for SaaS reporting; annual is steadier. Be explicit about which cadence a quoted churn rate uses.
How does a small churn rate add up?
It compounds. A 5% monthly churn implies losing roughly 46% of a cohort over a year — the rate is paid each period, on the surviving base.
When is this calculator unreliable?
When the customer base is small and one or two large losses distort the rate (use a trailing 3-12 month window for stability), when the churn definition is inconsistent across periods (downgrade vs cancellation, pause vs cancellation), or when comparing logo churn between businesses with very different ACV mixes — revenue churn is the more economically meaningful comparison. For consumer subscriptions, monthly churn can be deceptive; convert to annual using 1 − (1 − monthly)^12 for honest comparison.
References & Authoritative Sources
- OpenView Partners — SaaS Benchmarks — Annual SaaS Benchmarks Report · consulted June 1, 2026 · Industry churn benchmarks by segment and stage
- Investopedia — Churn Rate — Churn Rate: Definition, Disadvantages, Uses, and Examples · consulted June 1, 2026 · Standard definition and contrast with retention rate
- Recurly Research — B2B and B2C SaaS Churn Benchmarks · consulted June 1, 2026 · Aggregated churn data from Recurly's subscription billing platform across thousands of merchants
Related Calculators
Methodology & Review
Churn rate equals the number of customers (or dollars of revenue) lost in a period divided by the number (or dollars) at the start of the period, expressed as a percentage. Logo churn (customer count basis) and revenue churn (MRR or ARR basis) are different metrics — a business can have higher logo churn but lower revenue churn if the lost customers are small (or vice versa). Gross churn measures total losses; net churn nets expansion against churn. The calculator returns the period-over-period rate; multiply monthly churn by ~12 for an approximate annual rate (the exact formula is 1 − (1 − monthly)^12 for compounding, which differs slightly at high churn levels). Industry convention is to report annual gross dollar churn for SaaS and quarterly logo churn for early-stage SaaS. RELIABILITY: Reliable for stable customer bases measured at consistent points in time. Less reliable when the customer base is growing rapidly (the small denominator from old cohorts produces high apparent churn rates), after pricing changes or contract changes, or when the definition of 'churn' is inconsistent (does a customer who downgrades but stays count as churn? Does a customer who pauses and returns count?).
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