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Churn rate calculator

Churn rate is the share of customers, or of recurring revenue, lost during a period. It is calculated as customers lost divided by customers at the start of the period, or MRR lost divided by MRR at the start. This calculator returns both rates side by side, the annualized figure and the average customer lifetime. No signup, nothing stored.

Customers
Revenue
Customer churn
3.0%
monthly
Revenue churn
1.9%
monthly
Annualized
31%
customers / year
Avg lifetime
33
months

Revenue churn is lower than customer churn, so you are losing your smaller accounts and keeping the bigger ones. That is the healthier direction.

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The churn formula

Customer churn is the customers you lost in a period divided by the customers you had at the start. Revenue churn does the same with MRR, and average lifetime is one divided by monthly customer churn. The thing people get wrong is trusting one number: the two rates can disagree, and the gap shows whether you are losing small accounts or big ones.

customer churn = customers lost / customers at start
revenue churn  = MRR lost / MRR at start
avg lifetime   = 1 / monthly customer churn

Stripe gives the same customer churn formula, customers lost during the month divided by customers at the start of the month, in its guide to monthly churn.

The reason to compute both is that a single churn number hides who is leaving. If revenue churn is lower than customer churn, you are shedding small accounts and keeping the valuable ones, which is survivable. If it is higher, your best customers are the ones walking, and that is a fire to put out now. Churn also feeds lifetime value directly, so reducing it is usually the highest-leverage growth work an early SaaS can do. Read the 12 SaaS metrics that matter and check your customer LTV.

Common questions

How do you calculate churn rate?

Divide the number lost during a period by the number you had at the start. Customer churn = customers lost / customers at start of month. Revenue churn = MRR lost / MRR at start of month. Multiply by 100 for a percentage.

What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?

Customer churn counts logos lost; revenue churn counts money lost. They diverge when your accounts are different sizes: lose small accounts and revenue churn is lower than customer churn, lose big ones and it is higher. Watching both tells you which customers you are losing.

What is a good churn rate for SaaS?

For SMB SaaS, roughly 3 to 5 percent monthly is common; for products serving larger companies, under 1 percent monthly is the target. Lower is always better, because churn compounds: 5 percent monthly is about 46 percent of your customers gone in a year.

How does churn affect customer lifetime?

Average customer lifetime in months is 1 divided by your monthly churn rate. At 3 percent monthly churn the average customer stays about 33 months; at 6 percent, about 17. Halving churn roughly doubles lifetime value.

Churn quietly moves your runway

Mark an active customer Lost in Plainhub and their recurring revenue leaves MRR. Net burn and runway recalculate from that change, showing the cash impact. Use this calculator and your period-specific customer records to measure the churn rate; Plainhub does not keep a churn history.

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