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Churn Rate Calculator
Customer Churn, Retention, Revenue Churn • Live Projection Graph

Calculate customer churn rate, retention rate, net growth, revenue churn, customer lifetime estimate, and projected customer decline over time. Switch between customer churn and revenue churn modes, compare against SaaS benchmarks, and see the impact on a live graph.

Period
Preset
📈
Churn Rate Calculator
Calculation Mode
#
Total active customers at the beginning of the selected period.
#
Active customers remaining at the end of the period.
#
Used to isolate churned customers from net customer movement.
12
Used for the live customer decline projection graph.
$
Used to estimate revenue at risk from customer churn.
$
Starting MRR or ARR for the selected period context.
$
Revenue lost from fully churned customers.
$
Downgrades or reduced spend from retained customers.
$
Upsells, seat growth, or plan expansion from existing customers.
$
Revenue from newly acquired customers in the period.
12
Used for live recurring revenue projection.
Optional Benchmark Target
%
Used to compare your actual churn against your target level.
%
Helpful when teams manage to gross retention or logo retention targets.
Churn Rate
—
Churn Rate
—
share lost in period
Retention Rate
—
share retained in period
Customers Lost
—
gross churned accounts
Estimated Lifetime
—
based on churn
★ Core Churn Metrics
—
Retention rate—
Net customer / revenue change—
Annualised equivalent—
Target comparison—
💰 Impact Analysis
—
Revenue at risk—
After 12 periods—
50% decay point—
Expansion offset—
Benchmark Comparison
Customer Projection Over Time
Projected base
Target path
Half-life marker
Full Breakdown
Mode—
Selected period—
Starting base—
Ending base—
New additions—
Gross churned—
Gross churn rate—
Retention rate—
Net change—
Annualised churn equivalent—
Lifetime estimate—
Revenue at risk—
Projected base after selected horizon—
✦ Cal, AI Churn Analysis
Cal is analysing your churn...
💬 Ask Cal about your churn
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Your churn analysis is ready. Ask me how to reduce churn, what counts as healthy retention, whether your churn is investor-grade, or how churn changes lifetime value.

📈 Monthly churn benchmarks

Monthly churnAssessment
< 1%Excellent for enterprise SaaS
1% to 2%Strong B2B SaaS range
2% to 3%Healthy SMB SaaS range
3% to 5%Manageable but needs work
5% to 8%High for subscription models
> 8%Critical churn problem

📊 Churn notes

Gross churn measures what you lost, ignoring expansion or new acquisition.
Net revenue churn subtracts expansion revenue from churn and contraction.
Retention is simply 100% minus churn for the same base and period.
Lifetime estimate is roughly 1 divided by churn rate when churn is measured monthly.
Small changes in churn matter because retention compounds across future periods.

Related Calculators

LTV:CAC Calculator→ Break-Even Calculator→ EBITDA Calculator→ Startup Cost Calculator→ Profit Margin Calculator→

Related Guides

Churn Rate Explained→ How to Reduce Churn→ SaaS Retention Benchmarks→

What churn rate actually tells you

Churn rate measures how much of your existing customer or revenue base disappears over a defined period. In a customer churn model, the formula is simple: churn rate = customers lost during the period divided by customers at the start of the period. If you started with 1,000 customers and lost 30 of them, your monthly churn is 3%. Your retention rate is the inverse, 97%.

For recurring revenue businesses, churn is one of the most important operating metrics because it directly affects growth efficiency, customer lifetime, valuation, and how much new acquisition is needed just to stay flat. A company with strong acquisition but weak retention can still stall because every new cohort leaks too quickly. That is why mature operators track both gross churn and net revenue churn.

Core formulas

Customer churn rate = Customers lost ÷ Customers at start of period
Retention rate = 1 - Churn rate
Net customer change = End customers - Start customers

Gross revenue churn = (Lost revenue + Contraction revenue) ÷ Starting recurring revenue
Net revenue churn = (Lost revenue + Contraction revenue - Expansion revenue) ÷ Starting recurring revenue
Revenue retention = 1 - Net revenue churn

Monthly lifetime estimate = 1 ÷ Monthly churn rate
Lifetime is an approximation and becomes less reliable at very low or unstable churn. Still, it is a useful operating shortcut for subscription and SaaS businesses.

Why small churn changes are a big deal

Churn compounds. A business with 95% monthly retention keeps about 54% of a cohort after 12 months. A business with 98% monthly retention keeps nearly 79% over the same period. That difference looks small in one month, but the long-run effect on lifetime value and cash efficiency is massive. Lower churn means more of each acquired cohort survives long enough to generate more gross profit, refer others, and support expansion revenue.

Monthly churnMonthly retentionApprox. lifetime12-month cohort retainedComment
1%99%100 months88.6%Excellent enterprise retention
2%98%50 months78.5%Strong B2B SaaS
3%97%33.3 months69.4%Healthy but improvable
5%95%20 months54.0%High for SaaS
8%92%12.5 months36.8%Severe retention issue

Worked examples

Example 1: Customer churn

Start of month: 1,000 customers. End of month: 970 customers. New customers added: 40. Gross churned customers = 1,000 + 40 - 970 = 70. Monthly churn rate = 70 ÷ 1,000 = 7.0%. Retention rate = 93.0%. That is high for a SaaS model. Even with decent acquisition, the cohort leaks too quickly.

Example 2: Revenue churn

Starting MRR: $100,000. Lost MRR: $4,000. Contraction MRR: $1,000. Expansion MRR: $2,500. Gross revenue churn = (4,000 + 1,000) ÷ 100,000 = 5.0%. Net revenue churn = (4,000 + 1,000 - 2,500) ÷ 100,000 = 2.5%. Expansion softened the damage, but core gross churn is still meaningful.

Example 3: Why retention changes growth quality

A company with 3% monthly churn has an estimated monthly lifetime of 33.3 months. At 1.5% churn, that estimate rises to 66.7 months. That effectively doubles the time a customer remains active. In practice, that can roughly double customer lifetime value without any change to pricing, acquisition, or gross margin.

ScenarioStart baseLossChurnRetentionLifetime estimate
Strong B2B SaaS2,000301.5%98.5%66.7 months
Healthy SMB SaaS1,000252.5%97.5%40 months
Weak subscription800486.0%94.0%16.7 months
Critical churn5005010.0%90.0%10 months

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?+
Customer churn counts how many customers left. Revenue churn measures how much recurring revenue was lost or downgraded. A company can have low customer churn but high revenue churn if large customers leave. It can also have moderate customer churn but low net revenue churn if expansion from retained customers offsets the loss.
Should I use gross churn or net churn?+
Use both. Gross churn shows the raw leakage in your base and is the cleaner operational warning signal. Net churn includes expansion and is useful for investor reporting and growth quality analysis. Gross churn tells you how much damage happened. Net churn tells you whether expansion repaired some of that damage.
What is a good churn rate for SaaS?+
It depends on segment and contract size. Enterprise SaaS often targets well under 1% monthly logo churn. Strong B2B SaaS may sit around 1% to 2%. SMB SaaS can still be healthy around 2% to 3%. Sustained churn above 5% monthly is usually a warning sign unless the business model is intentionally short-cycle.
How does churn affect LTV?+
Churn is one of the main inputs in lifetime value. Lower churn extends the number of periods a customer stays active. Because lifetime is often approximated as 1 divided by monthly churn, halving churn can roughly double lifetime. That is why churn reduction is often one of the highest-leverage growth improvements a SaaS or subscription business can make.
Can a company grow with high churn?+
Yes, but the growth can be low quality and expensive. A business can still post top-line growth if acquisition is strong enough to replace losses and add net new customers. The problem is that more acquisition spend is needed just to fill the bucket. This usually depresses payback, burns more cash, and makes scale less durable.